


Mission: Avengers: No Strings Attached

by ChibiDawn23



Series: Mission: Avengers [5]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiDawn23/pseuds/ChibiDawn23
Summary: "Declassifying." That's what Clint Barton & William Brandt called it when they agreed to not keep secrets from each other. Except when Will runs into the Avengers on an IMF op in Sokovia, Will learns his brother's been keeping a few things hidden...Things that could tear their relationship apart. If they survive the end of the world.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton
Series: Mission: Avengers [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103894
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

_Sokovia, Eastern Europe_

Automatic gunfire and short explosions peppered the background noise as IMF agent William Brandt walked down the cobblestone streets of the capital city of Sokovia. It should have concerned him, but with the instability of Eastern Europe at the moment, it was more or less just another day at the office.

The sun was shining, but it was a chilly winter morning. He, Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn had arrived in their rental van from Bucharest, Romania the night before, and now Will was out on a location scout, getting to know the city. The others were still sleeping, adjusting to the time change. He was an early riser, always had been. Side effect of having a father in the police force, a few months at The Farm in Virginia…and an inherent excitement to explore a new place when they got there.

He greeted a mom and her son in his limited vocabulary before spotting a small café open for business. Several locals were lined up already, so Will joined the queue. If the locals liked it, it must be good.

William Brandt thought it was fantastic to be out in the field again. To be here, in the thick of things in a foreign country, fresh air and the smell of ground coffee beans and fresh pastry… _This is where it's at_ , he thought to himself as he stepped forward. He caught the eye of the young girl working the counter and flashed her a smile. She gave him a half-smile back before ducking below the display case. Will's smile faded as she disappeared, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

It felt weird to flirt.

It wasn't like anybody would care-Jane Carter was back home in DC. Although she was a hell of an agent and an asset to the Impossible Missions Force, she'd confessed to Will she'd had enough of the action. Will largely suspected it had something to do less with the hazards of the job and more with their disastrous failed attempt at a relationship and the revelation that his life was far, far more complicated than just working for IMF.

After all, when your brother was an Avenger….

Will had made the mistake of getting involved with SHIELD and the Avengers after his brother, Clint Barton (code named "Hawkeye"-a nickname he'd gotten from his father when he was a teenager) had gone missing from a SHIELD facility. That had put him and his team on a direct collision course with the Battle of New York, an alien race called the Chitauri, and far more weirdness than he suspected Jane had been ready to deal with. He was surprised that Benji and Ethan had been able to handle it as well as they had, but then again, Tony Stark was Benji's tech hero and Ethan, well, Ethan was Ethan.

Will hadn't handled it as well as he thought, either. Nightmares plagued him, a kind of post-traumatic stress that followed him on a near-disaster of a mission in Honolulu. Jane had almost died, a result of his hesitation. Ethan had sent him packing back to Baltimore, where he'd been kidnapped by a crazed competitor of Tony Stark, thinking that Will was his brother, Clint Barton. Jane and the IMF team had joined in the rescue effort with the Avenger team, and had come face to face with several incarnations of Tony's Iron Man tech. Staring into the lifeless faces of Iron Man armor was enough to scare anybody.

Will had asked Jane out shortly after that. Maybe not the best timing, but in the heat of a near-death experience, it seemed like a good time. They'd gone out for a few months, but then Jane had broken it off, telling Will she was quitting the IMF and transferring to a civilian job.

That had been almost a year ago. He hadn't spoken to her in that whole time, hadn't seen her. He wasn't even sure she was in the DC area anymore. And he'd been jet-setting around the world, so he hadn't exactly been home long enough to follow up, either. Not that he thought she would want him to.

"Can I help you?"

Will blinked, realizing that the girl behind the counter was talking to him. Not having any clue what the pastry in the case was called-he chose to do the tourist thing and point, then held up four fingers.

"Four of the apple?" she confirmed with him, in accented English.

Will laughed awkwardly. "Yeah. Sorry. And four coffees?"

She smiled at him. "Can you carry all that?" she asked him.

He grinned. "I think I can handle it," he replied, and she smiled at him before turning around to make his order. He dug in his pocket for some of the local currency as she set four paper cups on the counter in front of him.

Outside, he heard another explosion. _That sounded awfully close_ , he thought to himself, and stepped away from the counter for a moment to glance out the window and down the street. At the far end, a building was on fire, and people were running his direction. Another explosion. This time, the counters and equipment rattled, the wooden floor shaking from the shockwave. The girl behind the counter stumbled and dropped one of his pastries. "I'm so sorry," she stammered.

"It's okay, it's fine," Will reassured her. He turned around to face the interior of the café. "Get down! Get under something!" he commanded, authority slipping into his tone. Some listened right away, diving under tables or crouching next to walls. There was another explosion. This one made the windows shatter, glass imploding into the shop. Will looked at the girl behind the counter for help. The young woman yelled his order in the native language, and then, there was panic. A few people bolted into the street, joining the wave of people running down the street toward city center. Others threw their hands over their heads and shrunk down in the booths or slid under the tables. Will yelled at the girl behind the counter, "Get down!", and as she dove into an alcove, he stepped out into the street.

Something landed right in front of him, and Will yelped and staggered back. It was a seven-foot tall, gunmetal gray robot with a familiar-looking "A" on the chest. "Stark?" he said aloud, looking at the icy blue eyes of the 'bot.

"This quadrant is unsafe. Please back away. We are here to help." The message repeated itself, and Will realized that this wasn't Iron Man-rather, some other kind of droid. A peacekeeping model. He should've known-it didn't have the flashy paint job of Tony's Iron Man armor, or the bright blue of the arc reactor in its chest. Or Tony's sarcasm in the voice.

"Stark tech. In Sokovia." The Avengers were here. Clint was _here._

Will followed the robot's advice and backed up into the café again. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a slim black cell phone. There were three numbers programmed into it-Ethan Hunt's personal cell, Benji Dunn…and the third number he dialed keyed him into a special line. One only known to about nine people.

The phone rang, and Will ran a hand over his face. "Come on, Clint," he muttered. "Pick up."

* * *

Ten miles away, Clint Barton felt the phone in his cargo pant pocket vibrating insistently. He ducked through the snowy forest that ringed the city, keeping Baron Von Strucker's HYDRA soldiers in sight, trying to stay out of their line of fire. Nearby, he heard a sizzle and a crack and knew his partner Natasha had just taken another unsuspecting soul out with her wrist mounted Widow's Bites. A clang, and a thunk, and that was Captain America, Steve Rogers, and Thor.

A roar shook the trees, making him shiver. The Hulk had obviously found a toy. And all the while, Tony Stark chattered in his ear as Iron Man himself tried finding ways into the castle, fortified with some kind of defense system.

The buzzing his pocket wouldn't stop. He ducked behind a tree, tore open his pocket, ripped the phone out, and threw it on speaker. There were only two people who had this number, and if either of them was calling, it was _not_ a good sign. "Kind of in the middle of something," he ground out. "Is everything okay?"

" _Clint?"_

"Who the _-Will?"_ Clint almost dropped the phone. It was his brother, whom he hadn't seen in a good year. "What the _hell_ are you doing on this line? _"_

"What are _you_ doing in Sokovia?" Will shot back. "Last I heard, you were in Ohio! Long way from home, brother."

"Says you," Clint countered. "What the hell are _you_ doing in Sokovia?" He stuck the phone in his teeth, yanked an arrow from his quiver, and fired at a bunker three hundred feet away. He closed his eyes, waiting for the explosive-tipped arrow to produce a fireball.

Nothing happened.

" _Clint?"_ Will's voice asked. Clint ignored him, turning again to fire at the bunker. The next thing he knew, something slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the snow covered ground. The phone went sliding away. Clint groaned and rolled.

Someone was staring down at him. A young man, maybe half his age, in a dark blue track jacket and sweats. He had wild blonde hair that was almost white, and dark eyes. "What?" the young man said. "You didn't see that coming?" It was an obvious barb at Clint's marksmanship, and Clint growled, jumped to his feet, nocked an arrow and bringing his bow up just in time to see the young man….disappear. He could see footprints in the snow that led away from his position, but that was all.

"Guys-" he began, but a burning sensation garbled the rest of the words, and Clint collapsed to the ground, clutching his side. _One of those HYDRA bastards got a lucky shot off_ , he thought, grimacing in pain. He tried to drag himself to a tree to get out of the way.

He never got there. He could see dark red staining the snow. He was losing blood. The world was starting to go from white to gray.

* * *

"Clint?" Will Brandt yelled into the phone. Nothing. One minute, his brother had been there, the next, nothing.

Will swore, turned around and sprinted back toward the hotel, dodging past the people running up the street, all thoughts of his own safety out the window, even as buildings took fire around him. He flew past the front desk at the Hotel Blue to some very confused looks from the front desk staff, up the stairs and banged on the door to room 201.

Benji Dunn opened the door, but Will barely acknowledged the tech as he burst into the room. "My brother is here. The Avengers are here. In Sokovia."

Ethan Hunt looked up from their mission briefs. "Your brother is here?" Ethan asked him. "How-"

The building shook. Ethan frowned and looked out the window. "There's a tank rolling into town," he said. He looked at Will. "HYDRA?" The organization was well-known to IMF. After the fall of SHIELD, revealing it to be chock full of HYDRA infiltrators, the few left from SHIELD that weren't HYDRA were scrambling to track down the HYDRA personnel, and IMF had been tasked to help find a few of them.

"There's Stark Industries tech down there trying to keep civilians out of the line of fire. I reached Clint, we were talking, and then nothing…" He ran his hands through his hair. "I think something happened to him. I need to find out." He looked at Ethan pleadingly.

"Go," Ethan said. "We can handle this." He looked at Benji for confirmation, and Benji nodded, looking with concern at their teammate.

Will nodded. "Okay." He reached over and grabbed his day pack. "I'll keep you guys in the loop," he promised.

"Hey, Will," Benji said, as Will practically jogged past him. Will turned, looking at his friend. "Be careful," Benji said simply.

"Always," he replied. "You guys, too. Some of the fight was headed this way." He clapped Benji on the back and left the room again, sprinting down the hall and down the stairs, out into the streets.

He knew the main action was happening outside the city, so that's where he started to go. He turned down a side street and found himself looking down the barrel of an old Soviet-made tank. Whoever Clint and the Avengers were fighting, they obviously were trying to cause chaos by rolling into town and splitting the team's focus.

He glanced to his left. An apartment complex stared back at him. He looked right. A giant condemned building. "Great," he muttered. Go left, and potentially endanger civilians. Go right, and risk the building collapsing on top of him.

There was a small metallic _ping_ at the end of the street. Then, something grabbed his arm and pulled him into the air, depositing him on top of the apartment building just as the tank at the end of the street exploded.

Will wobbled on his feet as he found himself looking into the blue eyes of an Iron Man suit, this one decked in bright red and gold. "Hey, it's Thing 2!" Tony Stark's voice said from the other side of the visor. "What are the odds of Thing 1 _and_ Thing 2 being in Sokovia on the same day?"

"Is Clint okay?" Will demanded.

"Someone's up on his current events," Tony said, surprised. "Uh, no. He got shot, Bullet is stuck in his side. Thor just got him on the jet and we're almost ready to take off."

"Got room for one more?" Will asked, making a split second decision.

He could practically hear Tony grin. "Sure. Hold on!"

"Oh, _shit_!" Will yelled as Tony grabbed his arm and took off. The 'flight' took less than a minute, and Will found himself standing shakily in front of a slick black Quinjet. Tony's visor popped up and the man himself grinned at Will. "Welcome aboard, Agent Brandt," he said, jerking a thumb back at the jet's open hatch. Inside, Will could see Steve Rogers and Thor hovering over a flat table. Clint's SHIELD-issue combat boots were all Will could see of his brother. He brushed past Tony and jogged up the ramp. "Hey, guys," he said at Thor and Steve's confused looks. "Been awhile," he added, seeing Natasha and Bruce on the floor as Tony stepped past them and moved up to the cockpit to take off.

Will stepped up to his brother. Clint was unconscious. "What's his status?" he asked Steve. He put a hand on his brother's arm. Clint was clammy. Will saw his torn uniform Kevlar vest with bright white bandages already staining red. "Oh God…"

"Bullet's lodged in his side. Too risky to try to take it out here. We've got a doctor waiting back in Manhattan for him." Steve said, reporting the facts like a military field medic.

"But he's okay?"

"He'll live," Natasha said from near his feet. Will noticed she had an arm around Bruce Banner, and wondered if his friend was okay. "It didn't hit anything vital."

Will breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "Good."

"Where the hell did you come from?" Steve asked after a minute.

"Uh," Will said, leaning back against the bulkhead as the jet lifted off, "we were in town for a mission."

"In Sokovia?" Steve frowned. "Seriously?"

Will shrugged. "Small world."


	2. Chapter 2

_STARK TOWER, MANHATTAN_

Will sat backwards in a desk chair and watched Helen Cho's machine slowly patch his brother's wounded side. Steve and Natasha had done a decent job of field patching it to stabilize him enough to get him home.

"What, exactly, is happening?" Will asked again as Bruce came by him with a tablet in his hand. Dr. Helen Cho had attempted to explain it to them, but most of it had gone over Will's head. Clint was the science guy.

"She's creating tissue," Bruce explained, his eyes alight. He grinned at Will, and Will saw genuine excitement in his eyes. Will returned the smile. If Bruce thought it was going to work...he trusted him enough to not worry. At least...not too much.

"If we were in my lab in Seoul," Helen said, amused at Bruce's enthusiasm for her project, "the regeneration cradle could do this in 20 minutes."

"My brother could never do things the easy way," Will shrugged, and Bruce laughed.

"I heard that," Clint groaned, opening his eyes, the sedative he'd been given on the plane wearing off. "Nice to see you too, Will," he said, his eyes flickering to his brother.

Will grinned. "Hey, Clint. Nice to see you." Clint didn't miss the relief in his twin brother's voice.

"Oh, he's flatlining!" Tony Stark came into the room, adopting a mock TV doctor panic. "Call it. Time?" He set down the tray of soda on one of the tables. Will strongly suspected there was more than Coke in the glasses.

Will chuckled as Clint raised the middle finger on his right hand in Tony's direction. "Nooo," Clint drawled. "I'm gonna live forever." He looked at Helen. "I'm gonna be made of plastic."

"It's fantastic," Will sung under his breath, and Clint shifted his hand so it was facing Will instead.

Dr. Cho patted Clint on the leg. "You'll be made of _you_ , Mr. Barton. Your girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference."

"I don't have a girlfriend," Clint countered quickly.

"That," Dr. Cho sighed dramatically, "I can't fix."

"Social life time of death…2:33pm," Will said, checking his watch. Tony gave him a high five.

"Shut up, Will," Clint groaned.

Will wheeled the chair closer to his brother. "Admit it, man, you missed me."

"I will never, ever say that out loud," Clint breathed. He opened his palm and Will stuck his hand in it. "It is good to see you though," he admitted.

"Get a room," Natasha teased them.

"Yeah, I've got plenty," Tony said. "Though I wouldn't recommend rooming together unless you want people to talk." He looked at Natasha. "Or maybe you'd like that?"

Natasha grinned. "I don't kiss and tell, Stark," she said. She stepped over to Clint and Will and put a hand on their shoulders.

"Uh huh, and how does Banner feel about that?" Tony asked, glancing over at Bruce. His eyes widened theatrically. "You're gonna make him turn green!"

"Not that kind of green," Bruce deadpanned and Natasha smiled. His fun ruined, Tony turned to Dr. Cho. "And Helen, I expect to see you at the party Saturday." He looked at Will. "You're invited, I guess," he said. "Since I'm sure you're not leaving."

"Love you too, Tony," Will said dryly.

"And unlike _some_ people around here," Helen said, looking straight at Tony, "I have _work_ to get back to."

Tony shrugged as if to say, suit yourself.

Helen paused. "Will Thor be there?" She tried to sound simply curious, but the brothers Brandt couldn't help but snicker.

* * *

"It looks shinier," Will told Clint as Clint gingerly sat up an hour later with the help of Helen Cho. He reached out a finger and poked his brother in the side. "Feels like skin."

"Quit poking me," Clint told him. He looked at Helen. "Thanks," he told her.

"You're welcome." Helen smiled, making some notes on the computer. "Don't make a habit of it," she added, and both brothers grinned. She turned to Will. "The resemblance between the two of you is uncanny," she said.

"Comes in handy," Clint shrugged.

"I'm sure your parents would say otherwise," Helen offered and Will laughed. "If you'll excuse me," she said, "I need to go check on something with Dr. Banner." She nodded and left the room, leaving the guys alone.

"Probably checking on Thor's location," Clint guessed after she was out of earshot.

Will stared out at the New York City skyline. "Yeah, speaking of the great Odinson...Was that Loki's scepter I saw in the other room?" he asked Clint. He hadn't seen the scepter since the battle in New York, so it was surprise to see it in the next room. The blue glow still gave him chills.

Clint raised himself on one elbow, running his fingers absently over his injured side. "Yep," he said. "Strucker was using its magic for human enhancement." He poked the new skin patch. "Huh. That's so weird."

"Enhancement?" Will leaned against a table, crossing his arms over his chest.

Clint nodded. "Human experimentation," he clarified, and Will grimaced. "Pretty sure the kid that hit me in the woods was an enhanced."

"It was a _kid?"_ Will asked. _Experimenting on kids…_

"Couldn't have been more than twenty-five or thirty," Clint shrugged. "Younger than us, anyway." He looked at Will. "What the hell were you doing in Sokovia anyway?"

"Recon," Will shrugged. "Ethan and Benji were with me. IMF was looking for someone, last we knew, he was in Sokovia." He pointed at his brother. "Didn't expect to see you there though."

Clint shrugged. "Sorry I didn't call."

"What the _hell_ have you been doing?" Will asked him. "Since SHIELD fell, nobody's heard from you at all. Mom wouldn't let go of my hand the last time I was home." The boys called it her 'deathgrip' and she only got it when she was really worried about them. Will was pretty sure he still had her fingernail marks in his palm.

Clint swung a leg over the med table and sat up slowly. "Tracking down HYDRA," he said. "Trying to stay out of the spotlight. Didn't want to give HYDRA-or the rest of the world for that matter-an excuse to focus on me," he said, looking at Will. "I've got family to protect."

Will nodded. "I get that, Clint, really. But come on…not one phone call?"

Clint stood up unsteadily. Will pushed off the table with a hand out to steady Clint as he stood up. "I'm sorry, Will," he said once he was standing straight. "What do you want me to say?"

Will helped walk him to the door. "Don't do that again," he said. "And for the love of God, call Mom."

Clint coughed. "Fine," he said. "Mind if I use your phone? Mine's in a forest in Sokovia."

Will laughed as he pulled his cell from his pants pocket and tossed it at his brother. Clint caught it with the hand that wasn't holding onto the door. "I'm going to go shower," Clint said. He lifted up his shirt. "I wanna see if I melt in the water." He flipped the phone back at his brother. Will caught it with one hand and deftly stuck it back in his pocket.

* * *

Classic 80s rock was being piped in somewhere above Clint's head as he came down the stairs into Tony Stark's main living area at the newly-christened Avengers Tower. He caught a glimpse of himself. Two days ago, Helen Cho had patched him up. Today, he still had some lingering soreness but apart from that, he felt like himself. Tonight, he wore a plain black t-shirt, a black and white flannel button down and a well-worn black leather jacket. He glanced around the room. Tony, Thor, James Rhodes and Maria Hill were talking over by the bar. Steve walked past with his friend Sam Wilson, giving Clint a wave with the hand that didn't have a drink.

He saw Natasha and Bruce talking with Will and threaded his way through the crowd to join them. Will had what looked like a Dos Equis in his hand, and he handed the other bottle in his other hand to his brother. "Nice of you to join us," Will said.

"Someone said there was a party," Clint shrugged. "There wasn't until about five minutes ago."

"What happened five minutes ago?" Bruce asked.

Clint grinned. "I walked in."

There was a chorus of groans, and Will pointed with his beer to Clint's side. "Helen replaced your personality with that machine of hers."

"No, his sense of humor was always that bad," Natasha replied. She smiled at him. "Nice to see you up and about, partner."

"Well you know, I figured getting shot earned me a break, so…" He popped the top on his beer and drank a third of it in one gulp.

Will frowned. "You might wanna take it easy, Clint…are you sure your painkillers wore all the way off?"

Clint nodded. "Helen told me before she came down, my signs were clear." He grinned. "But thanks for checking, Dad."

Natasha studied her glass. "I'm going to get a refill," she said. "Back in a few." Her gaze lingered on Bruce for a moment before she sauntered toward the bar.

Will looked at his brother, who didn't seem to have noticed. _Interesting. Wonder what happened there_. Will had always thought Clint had a thing for his partner.

Bruce Banner turned without a word and followed Natasha toward the bar, leaving the two brothers alone. Will looked at Clint. "So…Tasha and Bruce?"

Clint blinked. "Hm. What? Oh, that." He grinned. "Oh, you've not heard about the latest development there, huh."

"What's that?"

Clint pointed at Natasha. "Bruce and Tony helped her develop…I dunno what you wanna call it. It's like…acupuncture mixed with massage mixed with…I don't even know." He took another drink of his beer. "When he's the big green guy, she just has to like, touch him, and say a few words and…" Clint smiled. "Poof. Back to Bruce Banner."

"That's crazy!" Will exclaimed. "Seriously?" Then he smiled. "I always knew he had more control over the Hulk than he thought he did."

"It's come in handy. I mean, there's still the chance the Hulk can go bat crazy, but Bruce and Tony invented something for that, just in case the lullaby doesn't work." Clint drained the last of his drink. "I'm up for another, want one?"

Will looked at his half drank beer. "Um. Yeah, why not." It was a party. Might as well relax a little, right?


	3. Chapter 3

The party rolled on. The brothers mingled. Will attempted flirting. Some attempts worked, some attempts didn't. A couple resulted in phone numbers. One particularly memorable one very nearly involved an empty bedroom. But for the most part, Will stuck to Maria Hill and Jim Rhodes, both of whom weren't official Avengers, and therefore part of the periphery, where he was. The last time he'd been around Maria Hill, she'd been ordering him around, seemed very no-nonsense, and kind of stuck up. But tonight she was funny, and friendly, and Will enjoyed her company. And Rhodey was hilarious. Who knew?

Clint had procured a set of drumsticks from who knows where…Will figured Tony, the billionaire had everything else, why not a drum kit somewhere in the house? The party died around three in the morning, and everyone had gone home except for the Avengers, Maria, Rhodey and Helen. Clint was sitting on a couch, twirling the drumstick in his hand. Maria's head was starting to bob. Will was sitting next to Helen, the two of them quietly observing the Avenger team. Thor had made the mistake of setting Mjolnir on the glass table in the center of the sunken sitting area, and it had become a topic of conversation.

"Whatever, man, it's a trick!" Clint said, matter-of-factly. He pointed the stick at the hammer. "He whoeverso shall be worthy shall wield the power," he intoned in a mock accent of Thor, then tossed the stick in the air. "Seriously….come on!" Will could tell Clint was on the edge of drunk. And a drunk Clint was always a pretty funny sight.

"Please, be my guest." Thor grinned as he leaned back and gestured to Mjlonir. The god had been knocking back Asgardian mead all night, but looked as sober as he had at the beginning of the party. _Must be a hell of a metabolism those Asgardians have_ , Will thought to himself.

Clint cocked an eyebrow. "Seriously?" He pointed to the hammer, then to himself.

Thor shrugged one shoulder. "I insist," he grinned, gesturing with a flourish.

"Clint never backs down from a challenge," Will told Helen. "This should be fun."

"And what exactly, are we challenging?" Helen asked.

"Well," Will started, and noticed the whole room had gone quiet, listening to him. "Oh come on, someone else can tell this better than I can….right Tony?"

"Oh no," Tony said, overly polite, "I defer to your superior storytelling skills."

Will rolled his eyes. "Fine. Hell. Okay. So, the legend goes that Mjolnir-that's the hammer-can only be lifted by someone who is worthy for the throne of Asgard." He looked at Thor. "I've got that part, right?"

Thor inclined his head, and Will continued. "Anyway, Clint seems to think it's some kind of Lance Burton magic trick," he said. "So, these boys are going to try to lift the hammer to see if it's a bunch of bull or if it's real."

"'These' boys?" Clint turned to his brother. "You're not gonna try, Will?"

"Hell no," Will shot back. "I can barely keep a girlfriend, I don't want to rule one of the Nine Realms." He pointed at his brother. "Go for it, big brother."

"Big brother?" Helen asked.

Will sighed. "By twelve minutes," he said.

"Clint, you've had a tough week, so, we understand if you can't get it up," Tony deadpanned from his spot. Clint glared at the billionaire.

"That did it," Will said, as Clint stood up, pushing the sleeves up on his jacket. He walked over to the table and gripped the handle. With a look around the room, he pulled.

The hammer didn't move. Like it was glued to the table. Clint let go, and Will saw color return to his white knuckles. "Jesus…." He grinned. "Well, I don't know how you do it. _And_ , before you start passing judgement, _Stark_ , by all means." Clint pointed at Tony, who had just opened his mouth to make a snarky remark.

Tony rose from his chair. "I'm never one to shrink from a honest challenge."

"Honest, my ass," Rhodey cut in.

Tony looked at his friend. "It's just physics."

"Uh huh," Rhodey said dryly. "Get after it, then."

Tony positioned himself in front of the handle of the hammer. "If I lift it, I then rule Asgard?"

"Yes, of course," Thor said, the tone in his voice suggesting just what a terrible idea that would be and exactly what he thought Tony's odds were of _ever_ being worthy.

Tony nodded thoughtfully. "I will be a fair and just ruler…though I will be reinstating _prima nocta_." With that, he grabbed hold of the hammer and pulled.

Nothing happened. Tony frowned. "I'll be right back." He disappeared for a few minutes, returning with one of the gauntlets from his Iron Man suit. He grabbed the handle again.

"I feel like this is cheating, Tony," Bruce said.

"I'm sorry, did I miss the rules breakdown?" Tony asked, looking around the room. When no one responded, he nodded. "Thought so." The gauntlet wasn't doing any good, and Will could see the steam coming from the vents.

"Hey, I got an idea," Rhodey said. He also got up and left the room, and returned with the gauntlet from the War Machine armor. "Count of three?" he asked Tony, who had let go and was flexing his fingers.

"Two hands are better than one," Tony agreed.

"I bet Pepper doesn't agree," Natasha whispered to Bruce.

"I heard that, and you'd be wrong," Tony said as he grabbed the top half of the handle. Rhodey grabbed the bottom. The hammer didn't budge.

"Are you even pulling?" Tony demanded from Rhodey.

Rhodey had a vein popping out of the side of his neck. "Just represent, man!"

They both gave up. "Who's next?" Thor asked, clearly enjoying the contest.

Bruce got up at Natasha's urging. He grabbed the hammer and Will could see the vein in his forehead pulsing. With a roar, he stood straight up from the hammer, arms wide with a loud yell…only to see Will laughing at him and everyone else staring at him dryly. "Nothing?" he said. With a sigh, he sat back down again, and made an 'after you' gesture at Natasha.

"Nooo," Natasha said, with a look at Helen and Maria. "That's not a question I need answered."

"Well, surely Captain Boy Scout is worthy," Tony said, nodding to Steve. "Let's go, Rogers."

Steve rolled his eyes but stood up, rolling up his sleeves purposely so the thick muscles of his biceps were visible. He looked at Tony with a nod, then pulled.

Will _swore_ he heard glass creak. He looked over at Thor, whose mouth was open in a small _o_. But then, as Steve tried to pull at it again, Mjlonir stubbornly wouldn't move, and Will saw Thor relax back into his chair.

"It's physics and biology," Tony decided. "He who holds Thor's fingerprint, I bet, is the correct terminology."

"Sure, that's a very interesting theory…but there may be another explanation," Thor offered. Thor stood up and picked up the hammer effortlessly, tossing it from one hand to the other. "You're all not worthy."

Clint tossed a drumstick at him. Thor dodged it easily and it clattered to rest on the floor behind him.

A loud ringing sound filled the air. At first, Will thought his brother had hit something with the drumstick. The sound intensified and Will covered his ears. He even saw Steve wincing, the sound must have played hell with his enhancements.

A voice spoke. Low. Monotone. Emotionless.

"No. How could you be worthy? You're all killers."

Clint looked up to see one of Tony's Iron Legion drones standing next to the elevator doors. But something was…off. It walked like it was broken. Like..like a little kid, just learning how to wobble on two legs.

"Stark?" he asked, looking back at Tony. "The hell?"

The drone continued. "I'm sorry, I was asleep. I had this dream. This noise…I was tangled in strings…I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." It almost sounded apologetic.

"You killed someone?" Steve asked. He too was looking at Tony.

"Wouldn't have been my first call," the drone admitted. "But out in the real world, you're faced with ugly choices."

"Who sent you?" Thor questioned.

A voice filled the room. Tony's voice. _I see a suit of armor around the world._

Will saw the light dawn in Bruce's eyes. _"_ Ultron," he whispered.

"What the hell is an Ultron?" Will asked, but Bruce didn't answer.

The drone- _Ultron_ \- nodded. "In the flesh. Or, not yet. Not this, chrysalis. But… I'm ready. I'm on a mission."

"What mission?" Natasha asked it. The drone focused on her, its eyes glowing blue. Will felt a pang of fear. The last time a drone had looked at him like that…it had nearly killed him.

"Peace in our time." With that, rockets shot up from the peacekeeper drone and fired. Thinking fast, Steve dug a foot under the coffee table and kicked it straight up. The rockets hit it and he shoulder rolled out of the way. Maria had pulled a gun from God knew where and fired, the shots pinging harmlessly off a second drone. Tony's Iron Legion was no longer his, they were pouring up from the storage unit and attacking everyone in the room. Thor took a swing at one with his hammer, and sent it flying into the glass. Will pulled Helen behind the couch. "Stay down!" he yelled. She threw her arms over her head. He chanced a glance back into the fight. Clint had dove under the bar, and Will saw his fingers twitch, like he wished he had his bow on him. Another drone was taking shots at Bruce and Natasha. Bruce grabbed Tasha and pulled Clint's partner over the top of the bar, shots shattering the glass bottles where their heads had been only moments earlier. Rhodey was nowhere to be found and Will hoped he was okay.

Steve tackled one of the robots from behind and wrapped his arms around its neck, trying to pry it off. The robot flew backwards, slamming Steve hard into the wall. Wood and plaster shattered. As Will watched, he saw one of the drones take off, with something long and glowing blue- _Loki's scepter_!

"Will!" Clint yelled. He didn't know where his brother was. _I need something to hit these bastards with._ Then he remembered. Will almost always had his ankle holster on. It wasn't exactly a party accessory, but he hoped Will'd remembered it tonight. "Will! Goddamnit, answer me!"

"Yeah!" Will yelled back, poking his head out from his hiding place with Helen.

Clint made a firing motion with his fingers, and Will understood immediately. He ripped his gun from the holster and tossed it across the room. Clint caught it with a flying leap, and slid down part of the curved wood décor, landing hard on his chest. Will stood up to help him, but something hit him and he went flying across the room. He slammed into a barstool.

Clint saw what had done it-Thor had snapped a drone in half with Mjolnir, but the bottom half had gone flying and nailed Will. The legs sparked and shuddered inches from his brother. And the top half…

"Tony!" Clint yelled. The top half was heading for Helen Cho. He looked for the billionaire, spotting him clinging to a drone midair for dear life, trying to pull out its circuitry. Clint heard the sound of a repulsor. The drone was going to fire at Helen, and she had nothing but the windows behind her.

Meanwhile, Steve had recovered. He took a running jump, grabbing the drone aiming for Helen and flung it backwards. "Thor!"

Thor was there, Mjlonir shattering the drone to pieces. Clint saw Helen change direction and head for his brother, and he hoped that she wouldn't have to patch a second Brandt brother.

Something glinted in the light. He realized he'd landed next to where Steve had set his shield down for the party. "Hell yes. Cap!" A part of him was giddy. Captain America had been his hero growing up-when he wasn't pretending to be Robin Hood. Clint leapt up and threw the shield like a discus, landing on the sofa. Cap caught it deftly and swung it at the remaining drone, cutting it in half. It went down in pieces. "Hell yeah!" Clint yelled, pumping a fist.

"That was dramatic." The dry voice of Ultron made the cheer die in his throat, and Clint looked up at the drone, who had been watching the fight with unblinking eyes. " I'm sorry, I know you mean well, you just didn't think it through." He turned his head, finding Tony sprawled on the ground admist a shower of glass. "You wanna protect the world but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve?" Ultron kicked a piece of an Iron Legion drone. "These puppets…there's only one path to peace." He looked around the room at all of them, and up to the balcony, where Tasha and Bruce had escaped to. "The Avengers extinction."

Thor threw Mjolnir. It hit Ultron in the head, snapping it clean off the body. The body collapsed and the head slammed into the elevator door, shattering. As Thor stepped over to inspect the damage, everyone heard a low voice singing.

"I had strings, but now I'm free….there are no strings on me."

With that, the blue eyes faded into darkness.

Clint dashed over to his brother. Will was just coming to. Helen was helping him to a sitting position. "You okay, Will? Clint asked him. His brother's eyes were a little glazed over, but he managed a nod. Clint stood up and looked at Tony, who was brushing glass off his shirt.

"What in the _hell_ just happened, Stark?"


	4. Chapter 4

"All our work is gone. Ultron used the Internet to escape." Bruce clicked idly on a mouse on one of the lab computers as Will perched on the desk next to him. The lab had survived the Ultron attack relatively unscathed (compared to the living room, which was a shambles, and reminded Will of the time the Hulk had pounded a Loki-hole into the ceramic tile) and the team had gathered there in the aftermath. Tony had sent Helen Cho back to Seoul on a Stark Industries jet. The doctor was very shaken after the attack, and Will didn't blame her a bit. She was the only person there that hadn't ever been in a combat situation, and it had rattled her pretty good.

Will raised a hand. "Uh, he's a robot, right? So how-"

"He's a computer program," Bruce corrected. "Artificial intelligence. He transferred from the bot to the computers through Tony's smart house system and out."

Will whistled. "God, am I glad I have a dumb house," he shrugged, and Bruce gave him a ghost of a smile.

"He has access to everything. Files, surveillance, probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha said through her arms on the desk.

The movement was subtle, so subtle that nobody probably noticed it…except for Will. He saw his brother's eyes go a little wider, saw his body tense. But then, it was gone instantly, and Will wasn't quite sure what had just happened.

"He's in your files…he's in the Internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey asked, standing next to Maria.

"Nuclear codes," Maria Hill offered, and Rhodey nodded. "Look, we need to make some calls. Assuming we still can."

"Nukes?" Natasha cut in. "He said he wanted _us_ dead."

"He didn't say _dead_ ," Cap corrected her grimly. "He said _extinct_."

"He also said he killed somebody," Will added.

"There wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria said, but Tony's voice cut off the conversation.

"Yes there was," he said quietly. The black panel in the middle of the floor lit up, and as they watched, gold light appeared. To Will, it looked like a holographic projection of a broken globe or some kind of sphere. But the way Tony was looking at it…it must've been more than that.

Bruce stepped over to it, poking one of the golden pieces with his finger. It fell to the bottom of the projection like he'd popped it out.

"This is insane," he said, looking over the top of his glasses at Tony.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would've shut Ultron down. It makes sense," Clint spoke up, ever the tactician, who'd realized what they were looking at instantly. He looked at Natasha for confirmation and the spy nodded.

"No." Bruce countered. "Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS." He looked at Tony. "This isn't strategy…this is rage."

_And he would know_ , Will thought to himself.

Suddenly, Thor came crashing into the room. In one swift move, he blew past Clint, grabbed Tony by the throat, and pinned him to the wall. "Whoa!" Rhodey gasped.

"What the-" Clint began.

"Use your words," Tony choked out. Thor fixed him pointedly with his dark eyes.

"I have _more_ than enough words for you, Stark." The god's anger was barely controlled, and Clint had no doubt that the demigod could snap Tony in half with little effort.

"You guys are on the same team!" Will yelled from his spot. _Please, please please don't let this turn into the helicarrier all over again_. He'd never been more terrified in his life-including the time there was a nuke headed for San Francisco.

"Thor!" Steve commanded, trying to get the Asgardian back on track. Thor's eyes flickered his direction. "The legionnaire?" Steve asked. Thor had chased the flying robot drone with Loki's spear out into the night after the attack.

Thor didn't take his eyes off Tony as he replied, "The trail went cold about 100 miles out, headed north. And he has the scepter." He let Tony down and Tony coughed, scrambling for air. "So we have to retrieve it. _Again_."

"The genie is out of that bottle," Natasha shrugged. "The clear and present danger is Ultron."

"I don't understand," Will said. He looked at Tony. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

"Us?" Clint repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Will said, raising an identical eyebrow. "I was in the room, you know."

To everyone's surprise…Tony snorted. Which then turned into a full on chuckle.

"You think this is funny?" Thor growled at him.

"No," Tony coughed. "It's probably not. Right?" He looked at Bruce, who was shaking his head warningly. "This is terrible. Is it?" He made a face. "It is."

"He's cracked," Clint whispered to Will.

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you didn't understand!" Thor said.

Tony dropped the laugh instantly, his eyes turning serious. "No. I'm sorry. This is _hilarious_. That you don't get why we _need_ this."

"Tony," Bruce said. "Maybe this isn't-"

Tony turned on his friend, his eyes blazing. "Really? That's it? You just roll over and show your belly every time someone snarls?"

Bruce didn't flinch. "Only when I've created a murder bot!"

"We _didn't_!" Tony said. "We weren't even _close_. Were we close to an interface?"

Before Bruce could argue, Steve held up a hand and stepped between the two. "Well, you did something right, and you did it right here," Steve said matter-of-factly.

Tony raised one eyebrow at the de facto team leader. "Does anybody remember when I saved New York by shoving a nuke through a wormhole?"

"Noo," Rhodey drawled. "It's never come up."

"What nuke?" Clint rolled his eyes at the same time Natasha deadpanned, "There was a nuke?"

Tony glared at the three of them. "A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We are standing 300 feet below it," Tony said, pointing to the roof. "We're the _Avengers_. We can bust arms dealers all the live-long day, but that up there?" He waved his pointer finger in the air. "That's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating them?"

Steve said, "Together."

"We'll lose," Tony said instantly.

"Well, then we do that together too," Steve replied seriously. "Look, Thor's right, Ultron is calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

* * *

Will wasn't sure how he could help, other than to report in to Ethan and Benji, let them know he was fine and what was going on. They were still in Sokovia, helping with some of the relief work-not only was it the right thing to do, but it was a perfect opportunity to ingrain themselves with the locals and continue their research mission. Will promised to keep them appraised. Ethan offered to have a contact at IMF do some searching for any strange activity, but Will, though grateful, didn't think he'd get anywhere.

There was 'strange activity' all over the damn world at any given moment.

Tony had been in his lab for the past eight hours straight with Bruce, and Will didn't have a clue what they were looking for. Data scrolled past them on the screens so fast he couldn't catch any of it. He was on the main floor sweeping glass when the elevator door dinged and Steve and Maria stepped off. "They're coming in from all over," Maria was telling Steve. She glanced up when she saw Will in the sea of glass shards.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Official Avengers business?" Will made a grand gesture of covering his ears, making Steve smirk. Then, he and Maria were headed up the stairs. "Reports of a metal man, or men," Maria continued, apparently no longer caring if Will heard.

"Any fatalities?" Steve questioned.

"Only when engaged," Maria sighed. "Mostly guys left in a fugue state, going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."

"The Maximoffs?" Steve said, and Maria nodded. "Well that makes sense, I guess. They have something in common." SHIELD's intel on Baron von Strucker's lair in Sokovia had included two secret files on two enhanced young people, a twin brother and sister named Pietro and Wanda. "What's their deal again?"

Maria launched into the official medical and scientific descriptions, but at Steve's clueless look, sighed. "He's fast and she's freaky."

Will snickered. From the top floor, Steve called out, "Keep sweeping, Will. I heard that."

* * *

Clint was on his cell, staring out a hall window over the city skyline, speaking in a hushed tone."I don't know. It might be awhile again….Yeah. I know, and I'm sorry." His tone was quiet and apologetic. He had one arm resting against the window as he tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear. His other hand he ran over his face.

"Barton," Steve called his name, making the normally stoic archer jump. He turned. "We might have something," Steve told him.

Clint blinked. "Yeah. Hey, I gotta go." He hung up abruptly and turned to Steve.

"Who was that?" Steve asked.

"Girlfriend," Clint said quickly. Steve raised an eyebrow. "I thought-"

"Yeah," Clint shrugged. "Don't tell Natasha," he teased, as he brushed past Steve and into the lab, where Tony, the aforementioned Tasha, and Thor were. Steve was carrying a tablet and he handed it to Thor.

"What's that?" Tony asked, coming around the table. Thor thrust the tablet into his chest with an audible thud. To Tony's credit, he didn't even flinch.

"Ultron killed Strucker," Steve explained as Will came upstairs to join the group. He exchanged a quick look with his brother. Clint seemed a little preoccupied, but he couldn't figure out with what.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene," Tony noted. He flipped the tablet around so everyone could see the word 'peace' scrawled on the wall behind Strucker's lifeless body in blood, presumably his own.

Natasha swore, and Will glanced at the screen of the desktop computer she was sitting at. "Everything we have on Strucker's been deleted," she said, not sounding surprised.

"Not everything," Tony said. He pointed at Will. "Thing Two, need you." Will frowned at his brother, and Clint shrugged. Will followed Tony out of the room and down two floors. "What are we doing?" Will asked.

Tony sighed. "Let it never be said that I don't take care of my stuff," he said, as the door opened. Inside the room were stacks of record boxes. Tony grabbed one off the shelf nearest to the door and dropped it in Will's arms. Will groaned, but looked at the box. The writing was in German, but he recognized one word: STRUCKER.

He looked at Tony. "Strucker's work?"

Tony nodded. "Strucker apparently still believed in paper," he said. He stepped past Will and Will followed him out. "Ultron's too 21st-century for that." He shook his head. "Kids these days will never know the struggle."

* * *

They waded through the papers in the box. When they finished one, Will helped Tony fish out two more. As Bruce sat weeding through a file on Strucker's known associates, he shook his head. "These people are all horrible," he said.

Tony glanced at him, then his eyes widened. "Wait. I know that guy." He filtered through some papers. "From back in the day," he told Natasha, and she raised an eyebrow. "He operates off the coast of Africa. Black market arms."

Will closed his eyes, trying to recall any names he knew from IMF in Africa. "Guy could deal in anything, sell to anyone," Tony said. "But he used to talk about finding a 'game changer'."

"What's this?" Thor held up a photo of the man. Will looked at the photo, spotted the tattoo growing out of the man's shirt, reaching up toward his hair. What Thor was pointing at was a rectangle-shaped mark on his neck, outlined in a scarred red.

"It's a word in the African dialect of Wakandan," Will said instantly. His brother cocked his head and glanced at him. "IMF has tabs on him," Will explained. "Saw it in a database once. It's a brand. It means 'thief.'"

"Wakanda?" Steve turned to Tony in alarm. "I thought you said your dad got the last of it."

Bruce raised a hand. "I don't follow. What was in Wakanda?"

Tony and Steve both turned, to where Steve's vibranium shield lay against the cabinet. "The strongest metal on earth," Tony explained. He pointed to Steve's shield. "For those of you who didn't read the comics," he explained, "That's vibranium. It was found in a meteor that crashed in Wakanda."

"If Ultron makes his robots from that stuff…" Clint sucked in a breath and let it out. "They'll be indestructible."

"Pretty damn much," Tony agreed.

"And Ultron could be his game changer," Will realized. He looked at Clint. "I've never been to Africa before," he shrugged. "Can't wait."

* * *

The team dispersed to start suiting up. Will followed Clint down a few floors and watched as his brother ran his hand over a thermal pad on the wall. The veins in his hands glowed blue on the panel. BARTON, CLINT appeared on the monitor, and Will heard an audible click. The door slid open, and Clint ushered his brother inside the room.

"Wow," Will said, looking around. One wall of the room he was standing in was backlit in industrial blue, displaying Clint's preferred weapons of choice-his high-tech bow and quiver. The arrows were neatly displayed in a vertical row, minus the actual arrowheads, which Will knew were in the holders at the bottom of his brother's quiver. The other wall had two vertical tubes, each holding pieces of Clint's armored Avengers suit. The black utility suit he'd worn in the battle of New York was on one mannequin-the other, the one he'd been wearing in Sokovia with the deep purple accents. "Clint's room 'o fun," he drawled, and Clint chuckled.

"Yeah, Tony's got a flair for the dramatic," he shrugged. "Still, it's a nice place to keep all my stuff. Can you imagine if I had this back home in Baltimore?"

"Mom would complain that it's one more thing she'd have to dust," Will replied with a knowing smile. "Speaking of, have you been home lately?"

"Yeah, I was just back a few weeks ago," Clint replied as he pulled his quiver off the hooks and started loading it.

Will frowned. "Really? 'Cause I was back right before I went out to Sokovia and Mom said she hadn't seen you in at least a month."

He saw it this time. His brother's hand twitched on the arrow shaft he was holding. "Maybe it was a little longer ago," Clint corrected himself. "It's been a long couple of days," he shrugged. "Too much jet setting around the world, I guess." He yawned to punctuate the point.

"Right," Will said disbelievingly. "Could be. Hey, are you guys okay if I come along to Wakanda?"

"You sure you're up to that?" Clint asked.

"Says the guy who almost died three days ago," Will countered. "And yes, I'm sure. Worse comes to worse, I'll hang out on the jet with Bruce while you guys do the wheeling and dealing." He shrugged. "It's just an arms dealer, right? How bad could it be?"

Clint's grip tightened on his bow. He turned to look at his brother, their matching eyes both narrowed in seriousness. "I cannot believe you just said that."


	5. Chapter 5

The flight to Africa was a long one. Will wasn't completely over his jet lag from flying from Sokovia to Manhattan, and now crossing timelines again was playing havoc with his system. He spent most of the flight asleep.

When he woke for the fourth or fifth time, Bruce Banner was sitting in the seat next to him, a pair of Beats headphones over his ears. He was awake, though, and when he noticed Will staring sleepily at him, he took them off, resting them around his neck. "Caught up yet?" he asked Will.

Will shook his head. "You can't catch up on sleep. It's physically impossible." To prove his point, he yawned.

Bruce smiled. "Okay, I'll rephrase. Awake?"

"More or less." Will unbuckled his seatbelt and shifted so that he was facing Bruce. He nodded to the headphones. "Watcha listening to?"

"Oh, uh, Pavarotti," Bruce replied. "I'm not really a fan but the Other Guy seems to like it."

"Really? Strikes me as more of an Ozzy guy," Will teased, and Bruce smirked. "How far away from Wakanda-?"

"About fifteen minutes out," Bruce said. "Haven't had a chance to talk to you much, how've you been?"

Will sighed. "All right," he responded. "Been better, but I know you're not really that kind of doctor so I'll save you the session."

Bruce laughed. "You'd be one of the first. Everyone else seems perfectly fine with dumping their secrets on me," he said. He frowned. "Maybe 'cause everybody already knows mine."

"Yeah," Will agreed. After a moment, he spoke again. "I think Clint's hiding something from me," he confided.

"How do you figure?" Bruce asked. Will was treating this like a couch session, but it wasn't the first time. The two of them had bonded after the Battle of New York. Bruce knew a thing or two about being thrust into a strange world with strange things and Will had gotten a very rude awakening to it.

"It's just like after…you know, after New York," Will explained. "You know, we haven't talked in months, and then, now we're here, and….I dunno, I can feel it," he said. "I just get this feeling that he's not telling me something, and it's gotten worse since Ultron jumped through the Internet."

"Ask him," Bruce said.

Will raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Just like that."

"Yeah, just like that," Bruce told him. "You told me that you guys don't keep secrets. So ask him."

" _On approach_!" Clint's voice announced over the comms in the jet. Will straightened up in his seat and glanced out the window.

"Guess I'll have to ask him later, somehow I don't think now is a good time," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Clint set the jet down at the edge of a dried lake. He frowned, looking out the window at the giant freighters buried in the lake bottom. "I feel like there's something missing," he drawled, noting the large puddles of muddy red water. "Where the hell is the water?"

Will stepped up into the cockpit. "Drought, maybe?" he wondered, looking out over the landscape.

Clint shook his head, tossing a thumb into the thick trees on the shore behind them. "Weird," he said. "Doesn't make any sense."

Will raised an eyebrow. "Uh. We're chasing a murdering robot and two enhanced kids with superpowers." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at his brother in the pilot's seat. "Is _that_ your definition of normal?" he asked.

Clint flipped him the bird. "Okay, _Dad_ ," he muttered, taking off his headset. Will stepped back so he could go into the back. Will was laughing. "Tony, Thor, Steve and Tasha and I are going to go find this guy. We need you to stay here with Bruce."

Will glanced back. Bruce gave him a two-fingered wave. "Unless we call Code Green, he doesn't leave this jet. Understood?" Clint continued.

Will straightened and snapped off a salute. "Yes, sir!"

Clint cuffed him in the back of the head. "Bite me, William."

"Thought that was Tasha's job," Will snapped back, waiting to see his brother's reaction.

There was a decided flinch. But then, Clint said, "I don't kiss and tell, Will." With that, he grabbed his bow off the pegs in the back and slung his quiver over his back. "Back in a flash."

"Be careful," Will said, all serious now. Clint nodded, then stepped off the ramp, following Tasha and Steve as they made their way across the dried lakebed. " _JARVIS is reading heat signatures in that one_ ," Tony reported from above their heads, gesturing to a large cargo carrier that was tilted slightly, probably from the unsteady ground.

"What's the plan?" Clint asked, his boots sinking into the ground. Tasha was similarly having trouble looking her usual graceful self.

" _My vote is to ground Frankenstein's monster_ ," Tony suggested. " _But you know, you guys do whatever._ "

"We could try negotiating," Steve offered.

"And if that doesn't work, Tony's idea sounds like a good Plan B," Thor offered. His boots were caked with the dirt from the lakebed.

Clint glanced sideways at Tasha. "I'm feeling good about this," Natasha whispered under her breath, and Clint chuckled nervously. The two of them watched as the ship's side came into closer view. Tony flew up and over the top of the side, Thor behind him. It took Cap all of one jump to make it up the side.

Clint looked at Natasha. "Ever feel like we got the short end of the stick?" he asked her, reaching into his quiver.

"Every damn day," she smirked. Clint fired the grappling arrow and it chewed into the metal of the ship. Natasha put her arms around him and the two of them were lifted up to the top and over the side.

Clint glanced back down over the side of the ship and off into the distance. If he squinted he could make out Will and Bruce hanging in the empty cargo bay of the jet, looking back at them. Then, the sounds of repulsor fire and metal on metal turned his attention back to the mission, and he followed Natasha down into the hold of the ship. The two of them made their way across a catwalk, Natasha easily silencing one of the crew members with her Widow's Bite bracelets. Clint had an arrow nocked and ready as he followed his partner through the ship's belly.

Above them, leading up to the crew decks and operating areas, they heard shouts, and then, the sounds of repulsor fire, metal on metal, and automatic machine gun fire. "Sounds like negotiating didn't work," Natasha whispered as they broke into a jog. One of Clint's arrows found its way into the heart of one of Klaue's men. Natasha jumped up on a railing and swung up onto the next level; Clint following her easily, darting through the innards of the ship like they were nothing. The sounds of the fight were getting closer.

They split up, Clint ducking down one catwalk, Tasha down the other. Clint inched his head around a corner, his fingers twitching on his bow. Tony was in the air with Ultron, the windows facing out onto the deck shattering with the impact of the two suits. Clint saw the same _kid_ he'd been blindsided by in Sokovia slam into Thor and knock him to the grating. And the woman who was with him…she fired some kind of red energy at his shield and knocked him backwards.

_Time to get in on this_. Clint spotted one of Klaue's men taking aim at Steve and put an arrow through his eye. Turning to look, he saw Mjlonir go flying toward a machine-gun toting bad guy-and the blur of a man moving to intercept it. _Maximoff. Pietro Maximoff,_ Clint remembered. As Maximoff grabbed hold of Mjlonir midair…the hammer took off with him still holding on, slamming into a wall and knocking Maximoff off the catwalk and into a junction box a few decks down.

Clint smirked. _What's the matter, kid? You didn't see that coming_?

* * *

Outside back on the jet, Will and Bruce stood in the open cargo door, watching the cargo ship. Will could hear the sounds of gunfire and blasting, and he was itching to get into the fight. He looked at Bruce, who was turning a nice shade of pale. "Guys?" Bruce asked, fighting to stay calm. "Is this a Code Green?"

There was no answer. Will tapped his earpiece. "Someone _say_ something!" he yelled.

He was met with silence. The two of them looked at each other with quiet concern. "I should get in there," Bruce said, but Will held up a hand.

"No, Bruce. Who knows what would happen if the Hulk got loose. Stay here. They're fine," Will said, returning his eyes to the horizon. _They're fine..._

* * *

In his ear, Clint heard Steve yelling at Thor for a status. " _The girl tried to warp my mind_ ," he said, and Clint knew he was talking about Maximoff's sister Wanda. " _Take special care. I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mi_ -"

Thor's voice dropped off into static. _Shit_ , Clint swore. "Thor?" he shouted into his comm.

Clint could hear Steve yelling at Thor but the Norse god wasn't answering. Clint couldn't see him in the smoke and the darkness of the catwalks. _"Barton!"_ he heard Steve yell. " _Find Wanda Max_ -"

Steve's voice disappeared. "Steve!" Clint yelled worriedly. He didn't get a response. "Guys, Cap's down!" he called into the comm. "And Thor. Tony, are you out there? Tasha?"

" _Clint?"_ That voice belonged to Will. " _Hey, what's going on in there?"_ Will demanded in his ear.

"It's not going so well!" Clint was up and running now. "Keep Bruce on that plane! And don't you come anywhere near-"

He froze as he came around a beam. Tasha was sitting on the stairs, dazed. One step above her, he could see the black skirt and boots of Wanda Maximoff. Red… _something_ …streamed from her fingertips, slithering into his partner's ear. Clint yanked the arrow from his bow and gripped it in his hand. In one quick movement, he reached around Wanda Maximoff and slammed the arrow into her forehead. The small taserlike grips crackled blue, and the enhanced young woman dropped to the steps. Clint stepped over Wanda and bent down over his partner. Tasha was staring off into space, her eyes unfocused. He shook her gently, but didn't get any kind of reaction. "No," Clint whispered. "Tasha?"

He didn't get a chance to get a response. The next thing he knew, he was flying backwards through the air, over a railing. He slammed into a pile of wooden pallets a deck down. _Goddamnit. The brother_. _"_ Yeah, you _better_ run," Clint groaned in pain as he tried to sit up. "Hey, if there's anybody out there…"He winced as he stood up. "If you're still standing, we gotta move! Steve, Thor? Tasha?"

The ship was eerily silent, all sounds of the fighting gone.

"Anybody?"


	6. Chapter 6

Donald Brandt had been a fan of old John Wayne westerns. He and his two boys had spent hours watching the Duke when they were younger. Even now, Christmas morning, they spent the day watching John Wayne movies as they marathoned on TV.

"It's quiet," Will muttered, leaning on his forearm as he stared out into the jungle. "Too quiet."

"Anybody out there?" Bruce was asking into the comms. There was no answer from anyone. All sound had ceased coming from the ship, and the only thing Will heard was the humming of the electronics on the jet and the breeze coming through the trees a few feet away. "I don't like this," Bruce told Will.

"Me either," Will said.

Movement.

Will was in alert mode before Bruce could ask him what was wrong. He held his pistol out in front of him and took a few steps onto the ramp. "What?" Bruce asked.

Will held up a hand to stop him, his eyes never leaving the jungle. "I thought I saw something out there. I'm going to go check it out."

"Not alone, you're not," Bruce decided, and stepped out onto the ramp to follow him.

"Bruce, you really should stay," Will told him. "I haven't heard Code Green and-"

"No, forget that!" Bruce shot back. "If that's the Maximoff kids or Ultron or….I dunno, whatever, two of us are better than one. I'm not letting you go alone!"

His dark eyes dared Will to send him back into the plane. Will sighed. "Fine. Stay behind me. First sign of trouble, you get the hell out. I don't need the Hulk pulling a Tarzan in the jungle. Stay on my six."

"Yes, sir," Bruce grinned as he followed Will out of the plane.

* * *

Will made his way into the thick overgrowth. It was totally silent here, too. No birds. Nothing. That made up his mind- there was _definitely_ something out there.

Movement on his left. Will whirled around. Nothing. "I don't like this," he muttered.

Something slammed into his shoulder. His finger squeezed the trigger and the shot went wide. He landed on his stomach in the dirt, heard Bruce call his name. Then, something was on him. It flipped him over onto his back, and he was staring up into the face of the Maximoff boy. Pietro. That was his name. The boy had wild white hair and was wearing a Russian-brand zip up hoodie and sweats. Will tried to get purchase under him, arching his back, trying to throw him off. But the kid had him pinned. "It's _you_ ," the boy said in an accented baritone.

"No," a woman's voice said. "There are two of them." Will craned his neck to see the sister, Wanda, with Bruce on his knees in front of her. "They are twins. Like us." Red tendrils snaked from her fingers, swirling around Bruce's head. Bruce was staring unfocused into the jungle, unmoving.

"No! Bruce!" Will hauled his body upward, gaining momentary leverage from Pietro's grip, unseating him. He lashed out with a knee, catching the kid in the back. Then, he was scrambling in the general direction his gun had been tossed. But faster than he thought possible, Pietro had him again by the ankle, yanked him up by the back of his shirt and flipped him onto his back again.

"You should have left us alone," Pietro Maximoff said.

The last thing Will heard before the punch hit him was a bone-chilling roar. There was a flash of green. A flash of red. Pain. And then nothing.

* * *

If it had been any other mission on any other day, Clint would've been bitching about having to carry all this dead weight back to the jet. Tasha had been easy, she was so light she went down the line easily. But Cap and Thor were all muscle, and no help at all. Cap was muttering something about dancing and someone named Peggy when Clint left him sitting dazedly in the empty jet (and that was a whole _other_ concern, but not one he could worry about right now). He was now returning with Thor being pulled unceremoniously behind him through the muddy lakebed. He left Thor just inside the cargo hatch and closed the bay door.

Then, he heard it. An earth-shaking roar. _Oh…shit_. Clint sprinted into the jungle and watched as Bruce- _no not Bruce_ , he realized, his heart sinking-the _Hulk_ , went rampaging through the jungle. "Tony!" Clint yelled desperately. "Stark, the Hulk's loose! If you're out there, screw Ultron, we've got bigger problems!"

He almost tripped over his brother laying on the ground. Will's shirt was soaked with sweat and dirt. He was laying on his back and there was no sign of his gun. "Will!" Clint called to him, dropping to his knees next to him and feeling for a pulse. It was there, strong. Clint closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Will, come on, man. I don't want to have to drag your ass back to the jet either." He shook his brother.

Will's eyes snapped open and he gasped, reaching blindly in the dirt. Clint grabbed his hand and held onto it. "Will! It's Clint. Chill, man. It's fine."

Will turned to focus on Clint. "Clint? God, I thought you were dead. Bruce-he's-"

"Yeah, I know. Can you stand?" He helped pull Will to his feet. "What happened?"

"I heard something out here. Went to look…got blindsided by the quick one, and the girl did something to Bruce's mind. One minute, Bruce was there, the next…" Will sucked in a breath. "On a scale of one to ten, how screwed are we?"

"We're at a frickin' thirty by this point, man," Clint shook his head. "Tasha and Steve and Thor all got whammied by the girl too. And if I ever catch that silver blur I'm going to drop him in a vat of liquid nitrogen to cool his ass off."

"We gotta get to the jet, we gotta find the Hulk. We need Tasha to do that-that _thing_ to bring Bruce back."

"Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen anytime soon," Clint said as they broke through back onto the lakebed. "We've gotta put this damn team back together." Clint popped the side door of the jet and the two brothers climbed in. Clint was lifting off before the door was even closed. Will moved to the back to check on the downed Avengers.

Thor was staring to come to. His eyes shifted into focus and he looked at Will. "How did I get onboard the jet?" he asked.

"I dragged your heavy ass," Clint yelled from the pilot's chair. "Is everybody on Asgard as ripped as you?"

Thor whispered something in a language Will didn't recognize, but thought might be swearing. He moved to Cap next. Steve was _singing_ under his breath, Glen Miller, if Will wasn't mistaken. His mom had liked the old records from that time period. Will shook him gently. "Steve. Hey, Cap, come on. We need you."

Like Thor, Steve's eyes started to shift back into focus, and he fixed them on Will. "Will?" Steve asked. He looked around. "What's happened?" he asked, coming back to team leader mode, though Will thought he detected an undercurrent of sadness in Captain America's voice.

Will filled him in quickly, and then left Steve to get back on his feet. His final stop was kneeling down next to Tasha. "Natasha," he said. He reached for her arm. "You in there?"

Natasha, trancelike, grabbed Will's wrist and flipped him onto his back. The sound drew the attention of his brother, who yelled, "What's going on back there?"

Before Will could answer, Natasha had her hands around his throat. _Typical of my day_ , Will thought as he tried to flip her off of him. But then, Steve was there, pulling her back. "Tasha!" Steve yelled in her ear. "Stop!" Will coughed, gasping for air on the floor of the jet. He struggled to a sitting position, hearing Clint yelling Natasha's name as Cap was pinning her arms.

It was almost instantaneous when Tasha came back to normal. One minute, she was fighting Steve, the next, she sagged and slipped out of his grip. Will had seen something like it the first day he met her-she kept slipping out of her emotions, not letting them show. This was sort of the same now. "You okay?" she asked Will.

"Hasn't been my day," Will rasped.

"It isn't Wakanda's either!" Clint yelled from the cockpit, and the four of them in the back came up to join him. Clint was in a holding pattern over Wakanda's capital. Down below, they could see…carnage. Fires raged, smoke was everywhere. People were running, panicked, away from _something_. Clint flew over one of the larger pillars of smoke. "Got them!" he told everyone, pointing. Steve leaned over his shoulder and looked down. The Hulk was unconscious. Next to him was a massive Iron Man suit. "Veronica," Steve breathed, realizing Tony's anti-Hulk suit had to have been called in to stop the rampage. "Tony," he asked over the comm. "You okay?"

There was pause. Then, " _Been better_ ," Tony's exhausted voice was saying. " _Veronica's at 5%. Hulk is down. Hurry up and get Romanoff down here so we can haul his ass home._ " There was another pause. " _I don't think people here are too happy with us_."

* * *

The mood onboard the jet was somber. Will could tell Thor was still furious for being taken under Wanda Maximoff's spell. Bruce was huddled in a corner with Natasha. He didn't even have his headphones on, just stared off into space. Tasha had a hand on his shoulder. She was also silent, staring off into space. Tony had just patched into Maria Hill.

" _The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest but it's in the air,"_ she was saying.

"Stark Relief Team?" Tony asked her, referring to the humanitarian side of Stark Industries Pepper had help him set up.

" _Already on scene,"_ Maria replied. " _How's the team?"_

"Everyone's…" Tony glanced around, locking eyes with Clint and Will. Even the Barton/Brandt brothers weren't okay. He could see it. He looked back. "We….took a hit," he admitted. "We'll shake it off." He didn't sound convinced.

" _Stay in stealth mode,"_ Maria advised. " _And stay away from New York for awhile,"_ she added.

"So, run and hide?" Tony asked her, sounding miffed. Will could tell he wasn't thrilled with that idea.

" _Until we find Ultron…I don't have anything else to suggest,"_ Maria said finally.

Tony flipped the comm off, plunging the jet back into silence. "Neither do we," he admitted quietly, so low that Will was pretty sure he was the only one who'd heard him. He slipped past Will and stood behind Clint at the wheel. "Wanna switch out?" he offered.

"I'm good," Clint replied, his eyes on the brewing thunderstorm ahead. "But if you wanna catch some shut eye or a bite, now's a good time. We're still a few hours out."

"From where?" Will asked.

"Safe house," Clint replied, not taking his eyes off the clouds.

* * *

_Four hours later_ …

The jet set down in the middle of an open field as the sun was coming up. Will leaned over his brother. "Where the hell are we?" he asked him.

Clint did a fast post-flight check, then leaned back in the seat and smiled. He looked up at Will. "Home," he said simply, and unbuckled his safety harness. Will let him slide past him before following him out the open ramp and-

_This is not Baltimore._


	7. Chapter 7

Will looked around, listening to the birds chirping and the sound of the wind in the trees. They followed a gravel service road around the corner and Will gaped at the three-story white farmhouse staring back at him. A red barn sat south of house, with a beat up Chevy pickup parked halfway between the two with Iowa plates. The shutters on the house were painted green. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Clint led the way into the house, with the others following him. "What is this place?" Thor asked as they came to the steps. Under other circumstances, Clint would've laughed hysterically at the sight of the big god, caked in mud, walking down a dirt road with cornfields in the background. But nobody felt like laughing at all.

"Safe house?" Tony offered, clearly not having a clue but trying to sound like he did. He looked at Will. "Family home?"

"We grew up in Baltimore," Will replied as he helped Natasha up the stairs. "I got nothing," he muttered, wracking his brain to think if his family had ever said anything about farm property anywhere in the US. As far as he knew, Donald and Laura Brandt didn't know anything about Iowa; in fact, Mom usually pushed Dad to take her to upstate New York to the mountains if they ever went anywhere. Iowa seemed very….unBrandtlike. He stepped onto the wraparound porch as Clint knocked quietly on the door, then pushed it open.

"Honey? I'm home!" Clint called into the open house as the others filed through the door.

"Honey?" Will whispered, thoroughly confused. Natasha slid her arm off his shoulder and stood next to him as a woman came into the living room from the hall, in a paisley-print top and blue jeans. She had brown hair that fell past her shoulders…and brown eyes that lit up when they locked on Clint.

"Company," Clint bit his lip as she stepped up to him. "Sorry I didn't call ahead." He gave her a hug that lingered a little bit.

Tony looked at Will. "Do you have a sister?" he asked.

"Not that I know of," Will trailed off as Clint wrapped his arm around the woman. Clint pressed a kiss to her forehead, and he heard Steve whisper, "Awfully friendly for a sister."

"This is clearly an agent of some kind," Tony decided.

Clint's eyes drifted to his little brother. "Gentlemen," he said cautiously. "This is Laura."

She smiled, looking at all of them. "I know all your names," she said shyly. "I'm glad to finally meet you. _Especially_ you." She smiled at Will.

Will glanced at her left hand. A simple diamond sparkled back at him. His eyes widened, and he looked at Clint in shock. _Married. Clint's married?_ There was a couch near him, and he sank onto the arm. He stared at his brother and his _wife_ …

Footsteps echoed on the stairs, and Clint blinked. "Oh…incoming," he said awkwardly, as two small figures burst into the room and threw themselves into his arms. A little girl, with brown braids and a flower print dress, and a boy in flannel and jeans.

 _Clint is married. With kids._ Will's mind was reeling. He was glad to have the couch under him…because it was the only thing keeping him from falling off the planet.

This was _insane_. This was _crazy_. Will was an uncle. He was a brother-in-law. And this was the first he'd heard of it.

"Daddy!" the little girl said, burying her face in Clint's shoulder.

"Hi, sweetheart. Hey, buddy," Clint said happily, using his free hand to wrap the boy in a hug. He kissed the top of the boy's head. He held them for a long time too. "You guys got taller. Definitely bigger since the last time I was home. I thought I told you to stop growing?" The little girl laughed and Clint ruffled the hair of the boy. The pride in his face was evident.

"And, these are…smaller agents," Tony said, sounding less convinced. "The hell's going on?" he asked Will out of the side of his mouth.

Will looked at him, and Tony could see the anger in his eyes. "You know as much as I do, Tony," Will said darkly.

Clint's daughter-for that's who this child had to be, she had Clint's nose and Laura's hair, looked at Clint. "Did you bring Auntie Nat?" she asked.

Natasha said, "Why don't you hug her and find out?" The little girl squealed, dropped from Clint's arms and ran straight to Natasha's, to the surprise of everyone in the room. It was a sight to behold-Natasha, still in her Kevlar uniform, hugging the stuffing out of a little girl.

Will caught his brother looking at him from over the top of the boy's head, and didn't bother to hide the anger and confusion in his eyes. _Natasha knows. Natasha knows but not me._

There was a moment of awkward silence as everyone in the room considered everyone else in the room. Then, finally, Steve, ever the gentleman said, "Sorry to barge in on you like this."

"Yeah, we were too busy _not_ knowing you existed," Tony shrugged.

"Fury set this up for me when I joined, kept it quiet," Clint said, his eyes watching his brother. Will was pissed and he knew it….knew he would be. "Would appreciate it if you'd keep it that way," he said. He looked at Laura, but before he could say anything, Laura said smoothly, "Let's get you guys settled. Natasha knows her way around."

Natasha set the little girl down and smiled at Laura. "How's little Natasha?" she asked, nodding to her midsection, and the men in the room noticed that Laura's belly made the bottom of her print shirt flare out a bit.

Laura grimaced. "Actually…" she frowned. "It's Nathaniel."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, then bent down so her face was even with Laura's belly. "Traitor," she whispered to it, but smiled at Laura so she knew she was joking.

Will watched the exchange. _She's pregnant_. _Clint is married. I'm an uncle. She's expecting. I'm-_

The floor fell out from under Will Brandt. Without a word to anyone, Will jumped off the arm of the couch and burst out the farmhouse door, letting it slam shut in his wake. Through the open living room window Clint could hear gravel crunching as his brother stalked off down the road. He was headed in the general direction of the barn.

Laura turned to her husband. "Clint, is it okay if-"

"Cap might fit, Bruce will for sure, Tony too, not sure about Thor," Clint said, knowing what she was asking. He turned to look at them. "Hope you guys don't mind flannel." He looked at Laura hesitantly. "I need to-"

She nodded understandingly. "Go."

"Can we come?" the kids asked, tugging on Clint's hands.

Clint bent down with a grin. "Daddy needs to go talk to Uncle Will," he told them. He looked at his son. "Cooper, can you go up to my room and find two of Dad's shirts for Tony and Steve?"

"You mean Captain America and Iron Man?" Cooper said. "Sure!" He grinned and raced up the stairs.

At Steve's look, Clint said apologetically, "We've been working on it."

"Uh no," Steve said. "It's um, not a problem." His tone still suggested he was lost.

"Lila, why don't you take Auntie Nat upstairs," Laura suggested. "She could probably use a shower and some alone time from all these boys."

Lila brightened. "Okay, Mommy!" she said, tugging on Natasha's hand and pulling her toward the stairs. As she went, she began rattling off a story to Natasha, something that had happened since the last time she'd visited. Her words faded as they disappeared into the master bedroom.

Clint mouthed _Thank You_ to his wife, and Laura smiled back. Then, Clint went outside and followed the dirt path down to the barn. The door was pulled back a crack, and Clint stuck his head inside. Will was sitting on the ground against the wheel of Clint's John Deere, staring out the open door.

* * *

"I guess we need to talk," Clint said by way of opening, leaning in the barn door.

Will snorted. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we do." But before Clint could say anything, Will plunged ahead. "When were you gonna tell me that you had a wife? And kids? And a farmhouse in Iowa? When were you going to mention to me that I'm an _uncle_?"

"Will-"

"Do Mom and Dad know? Do they know they've got a daughter in law? That they're _grandparents_?"

"No!" Clint cut in. "Nobody knew anything about Laura and the kids except Nick Fury and Natasha."

"So, it was okay for SHIELD to know but not your _family_?" Will stood up and paced around the tractor, slamming his hands on top of the hood. "Jesus Christ, Clint, how the hell could you keep this a secret?" He glared at his brother. "Whatever happened to 'declassifying? Remember, that promise we made that we could tell each other _anything?_ " he asked. He thought of something else. "Does she know that she's named after our mother?"

"I'm pretty sure Mom was born first," Clint said, but the joke rolled flat. "And actually…yeah." He rubbed the back of his head. "Laura knows all about you. Us." He pointed back at the house. "Them."

Will rolled his eyes. "Of course she does," he said, walking around the tractor. He took a breath. "So. When did-"

"I met Laura in a bar on my way back to DC to sign up for SHIELD," Clint said. He came into the barn, ran a hand over a workbench. "You know I was only in the Corps for BASIC. Phil Coulson-you met him-" He took a breath, remembering his handler. "Phil was there, looking for potential. He saw me, gave me the SHIELD spiel, and then told me to come to DC. I told him I wanted time to think about it. Anyway…I was on my bike, falling asleep at the wheel, and I pulled over in this little podunk town at the next exit. Middle of nowhere, lots of cornfields. Pulled up at the only bar in town, she was the bartender…"

"Your wife is a one night stand from a bar?" Will shook his head. "Maybe it's a good thing Mom _doesn't_ know."

Clint glared at him. "You're an asshole. I didn't one night stand her. Let me finish. I stayed around for a week or so. Laura was amazing, Will, she…" He closed his eyes. "I can't explain it. It was like, from the second I saw her, I knew she was the one. A week after I met her, I told her I loved her and I wanted to be with her, but that there was this job…" He opened his eyes and glanced back at the house. "She said she didn't care, as long as I came back to her. We got married in a courthouse ceremony, and then the next day I left for SHIELD."

"And SHIELD didn't care that you had a wife?"

" _Hell_ yes," Clint recalled. "Fury was pissed that Phil had brought in a family man-although, now that I think back, pretty sure Phil had a girlfriend...anyway...I flat told them I wasn't working for them without some kind of assurance my family- _both_ of them-" he added with a look at Will- "would be safe. So he set this up. And it's worked. Nobody knew about them. But when SHIELD fell…" Clint shivered. "I was lucky there was no record of a family in my file. And if Ultron would've gotten that information…"

"Protecting us again?" Will asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, Will, I was!" Clint replied seriously. "I _wanted_ to tell you, believe me." Will rolled his eyes and Clint stepped toward him. "I _swear_. Cooper and Lila-they've wanted to meet their grandparents and their Uncle Will since they were old enough to ask who you were in the pictures."

"And what'd you tell them, Clint, huh? 'Someday, kids,'" he mimicked his brother. "'Except that when they meet you, just remember if they looked really confused it's because they didn't know you existed?'" He looked up at the rafters. "What about Natasha?"

"Just friends," Clint replied. "Partners. She agreed to help me keep up the façade. We're both pretty good at playing our roles."

"How'd she find out about..them?"

"They have _names_ ," Clint growled. "Laura, Cooper and Lila. I couldn't keep secrets from my partner. She needed to know if there was ever anything she needed to know that would break me if I got caught. I told her about them. You guys too. She met Laura and the kids-well, Lila was just a baby-and you guys the same weekend. Do you remember the weekend I brought Tasha to Baltimore?"

"Yeah," Will said. "Mom thought you liked her. A lot."

"I guess our act is pretty good then," Clint replied.

"So you could tell Tasha about them, but not us?" Will sounded completely betrayed. "I don't understand that one."

"You keep secrets in your line of work too, Will!" Clint pointed out, exasperated.

"Yeah," Will agreed. He stepped up so he was in Clint's face. "But never from you." Clint saw tears in his eyes. He'd never seen his brother so upset. "How could you not tell me, Clint?"he demanded. "How could you keep this from me? From Mom and Dad? I mean, Jesus, Clint, we're not the enemy. I've been trained to keep things confidential. Hell, I've done protection details, it's not like I don't know how to keep people safe!"

"And how did that work out for you in Croatia, Will?" Clint exploded. The instant he said it, he regretted it. He watched the color pale in his brother's face, watched his eyes go flat.

Clint hadn't meant to say it. He was frustrated and upset. It just came out. A Brandt family trait-you just said what was on your mind. "Will-"

"You son of a bitch," Will hissed at him. He stepped back from Clint. "Go back to your _family_ , Clint." He pushed past his brother and walked out the door. "I hope you have an extra brother out there somewhere too," he said over his shoulder. "'Cause you don't have one here."

Clint watched his brother walk out of his life. Then, he turned and slammed his boot into the tire on the tractor.

* * *

Will stalked down the road, his mind reeling. Steve was the first to catch his eye. "You okay, Will?" Steve asked him. Cap and Thor were standing out in the yard. Thor had Mjolnir in hand.

"Not really, Steve." Will's voice was bitter. "Not really." He looked around. "I'm gonna go," he said. "So far the only thing I've managed to do anyway is get knocked around. I need to get out of here." _I need…I don't know what I need._

"We could use the extra manpower," Steve said carefully. He imagined Will must have felt similar to when Steve had woken up in that SHIELD facility in Manhattan. People lying to him, telling him the world was still the same when it was in fact, very different. "But I understand," he added after a minute. "Are you planning on telling…um, Laura, that you're leaving?"

Will glanced up toward the house. "No," he said quietly. "They've waited this long to meet Uncle Will-" here he spit the word 'uncle' out like it tasted bad- "they can wait a little longer." He nodded to Thor. "See you guys around."

Then, he was walking up the gravel road. It had to connect to a main artery somewhere. Iowa wasn't a complete hick state. And from there…Will Brandt didn't know where he was going, but he knew it needed to be anywhere but here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, Joss, for making me have to retcon in a family for Clint LOL.


	8. Chapter 8

Clint came back into the house and went up the stairs to the master bedroom. The walls were plain white, and sprinkled on the walls were black and white photos of the farmland, along with school photos of Cooper and Lila. He'd been meaning to paint in here. Something bright. White was so boring.

He sank down onto the bed. He'd screwed up. He'd thought by keeping Laura and the kids from everyone, he was protecting them. Protecting Will. If neither knew about the other, if they ever got in trouble, no one would get hurt. It was a stupid assumption. He should have had more faith in his brother than that. Maybe more faith in everyone...

"How's your bullet wound?" Clint looked up to see Laura in the doorway. She came in and sat next to him, gently helping him strip off his uniform until he was in his uniform pants and shirt. She brushed her fingers lightly over the patch of skin that was just a shade off from his own normal skin tone.

"Fine," Will said. "You worried for nothing."

"Right," Laura teased. "I should just not worry about you getting shot. That's old hat, after all." She waited while he kicked off his boots and stripped off his pants, swapping them for the pair of jeans she handed him, still splotched yellow from the kitchen paint job two years ago.

"So, you know if they're gonna sleep here, some of them are going to have to double up," she said after a minute. Clint snorted out a laugh.

"Yeah, that should go over well," he said.

"Well, Nat and Dr. Banner should have no problems," Laura said. "How long's that been going on?"

"I'm not even sure it _has_ happened," Clint shrugged. He knew Nat liked Bruce. He was pretty sure Bruce liked Nat. "I haven't seen anything that says it has."

"Oh, okay. Whatever you say, _Hawkeye_ ," Laura replied. Clint got off the bed and wandered to their closet, reaching for a flannel shirt. Laura stayed on the bed. "It's bad, isn't it," she stated. "Nat looks really upset."

Clint had filled her in on most of it in New York, after the attack. It had been Laura he'd been on the phone with when Steve had found him by the windows. He'd lied and told Steve it was a girlfriend.

_Too many lies, Clint,_ he thought to himself. "Uh, Ultron's got these allies. Kids, really. Punks," he added, thinking of Pietro Maximoff. "They carry a big damn stick and we took a serious hit. Someone's going to have to teach them some manners."

"That someone being you?" Laura asked. "You know I totally support your…Avenging," she continued. Clint sat down on the bed again and she sat down next to him, rubbing his shoulders. He relished the contact. He hadn't seen Laura in what felt like months. "I couldn't be prouder," she added. He knew she wasn't lying. Laura loved the fact that he was an action hero, and thought it would be funny to buy a Hawkeye figuring for Cooper. Cooper played with it constantly, even if he was too outgrown for his others. In fact, Laura had told Clint that when he was gone, it never left Cooper's side. He brought it everywhere, even to school. That way, Dad was still here. "But I see those guys, those gods…"

"You don't think they need me?" Clint asked her. Some days, he wondered. He was only human. What help was he to the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor?

"No," Laura said. "I think they _do._ Which is a lot scarier," she added truthfully. "You're human. You keep them grounded. So you need to make sure that this team is really a team, and that they have your back," she pleaded with him. "That mess down there, that's not a team right now."

He had a feeling she wasn't only talking about the Avengers. "Things are changing for us, in a few month's time. I need them looking out for this baby's daddy," she said. "And…" she added as an afterthought. "Someone needs to look out for this baby's family." She nodded out the window. "Since he's not here, I take it things didn't go well with Will?"

Clint leaned back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and sinking into the comforter. "No. I screwed up, Laura. I screwed up royally. I don't think there's any fixing _that_ particular mess."

"What happened?"

Clint told her about the fight in the garage. "He said he didn't have a brother anymore, Laura," Clint said. Laura was now resting on the bed, propped on her side, tracing circles on Clint's arm. He sighed. "I told you, I screwed up."

"Well, maybe a little," Laura replied, and Clint raised an eyebrow.

"Thanks for the support."

"You know what I mean," she told him. "You should've just told him about us from the start. You've been keeping a secret and living a lie for…well, Cooper is ten, so…."

"Too damn long," Clint sighed.

"Hey, watch your language," Laura teased him, and Clint managed a smile. "You'll figure it out," Laura said. "I promise you."

"Why are you always right?" Clint asked her, propping himself up next to her. He poked her in the nose and she laughed.

"It's a gift," she replied. Then, she winced.

"What?" Clint asked, instantly on alert. "What was that?"

Laura guided his free hand gently to rest on her side. Clint felt movement under his palm. He looked at Laura. "That was the baby, agreeing with Mommy that Daddy better come up with a plan to save the world and fix his mess," she cooed at her belly.

Clint leaned over the top of her and kissed her hungrily. "God I missed you," he whispered when he broke away for air.

"That feeling is mutual," Laura said. Clint was just about to go in for a second round when Laura heard a buzzing sound coming from somewhere in the room. "Um, honey," she whispered as Clint's lips slid up her neck toward her ear, "I think your pants are ringing."

"They can leave a message."

Just then, Cooper came thundering up the stairs. "Dad?" he was yelling through the bedroom door. "There's a guy with an eyepatch here!"

Clint's head snapped up. He looked down at Laura. "The hell?" he wondered, and crawled off the bed and opened the door. Cooper stepped back, and Clint squeezed his shoulder as he walked to the upstairs landing.

"I did call ahead…" Nick Fury mentioned from the bottom of the stairs. He shook the black cell phone in his hand. "You gonna invite me in?"

* * *

That night, the remaining Avengers and the Barton family were gathered in the kitchen. Thor had disappeared almost immediately after Will without a word of explanation. Apparently, there was a lot of that going around. Outside, the air was calm. It was a nice change. Clint popped open a few windows to let the night air slide through the house.

"Ultron took you guys out of play to buy himself time," Fury was explaining. Clint had managed to scare up a six pack of beer and Fury had one in his hand as he spoke. "My contacts say he's building something. With the amount of vibranium he took off with, I don't think he's making just one thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked. He was wearing one of Clint's Marine Corps hoodies that every cadet got their first day.

"Oh, he's easy to find," Fury shrugged. "Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit," he continued, and Cooper giggled from his place at the table. The kids were just finishing dinner. The adults had finished a long time ago. Clint was helping Laura with dishes. "Doesn't help us get closer to his plans though," Fury added as an afterthought.

"Is he still going after launch codes?" Tony asked. He tossed a dart at the dart board in the living room. It landed on the board, nowhere close to a bulls eye.

"Yes he is, but not making any headway," Fury said. Tony looked over at Fury in surprise.

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school," he said. "On a dare. So how is _Ultron_ not getting through?"

"I checked with our friends at the Nexus on that," Fury continued.

"Nexus?" That came from Steve.

"The world Internet hub in Oslo. Everything goes through there," Bruce said. "It'd be the easiest access point," he added. "So how-"

"They say the codes keep changing."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "By _who_?" Something sailed past his head and buried itself in the bulls eye. He looked back. Clint waved from the sink, gesturing to the second set on the window sill. "They're Laura's," he said, off Tony's confused look.

"And even I can hit the bulls eye from where you're standing," Laura told Tony. Tony, childishly, stuck his tongue out at her. She laughed and put a plate in Clint's hands to dry.

"So we've got an ally?" Natasha said, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"No, Ultron's got an enemy," Fury countered. "Not the same thing."

"Might need to road trip to Oslo," Tony decided, pulling Clint's dart from the bulls eye.

"This is fascinating," Natasha said. She looked at Fury with a grim smile. "I was kinda hoping you'd have more for us, though."

"I do," Fury said. "I've got you."

The conversation stopped, and the only sounds were that of Lila scribbling away at a picture at the table. "Ultron says the only thing between him and his mission…is the Avengers. Whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this," he gestured around him at the farmhouse. At all of them together. "Gone. So _stand_ ," he ordered them. "Outwit the platinum bastard."

Natasha made a show of covering Lila's ears. "Steve doesn't like that kind of language," she admonished Fury.

Steve rolled his eyes. "You know what, Romanoff-"

"Hey, there's kids present," Clint cut in with a wink at Cooper.

"So what does Ultron want?" Fury asked, leaning back at the kitchen table, looking around the room like a high school teacher waiting for a question to be answered.

"To become better," Steve said. "Better than us. He keeps building bodies."

"No," Bruce spoke up. He'd been silent for awhile, processing. Clint glanced up at the doctor. "Evolve. Not become better. Ultron is going to evolve."

"How?" Fury asked him.

Bruce got up from his chair so fast it almost tipped. "Has anybody been in contact with Helen Cho?" he demanded.

"The regeneration cradle!" It hit Tony the moment Bruce said Helen's name. He looked at Bruce. "We gotta get to Seoul."

"I'll take Natasha and Clint," Steve decided. "Recon, check it out."

"I'm going to Oslo," Tony said. "And I'll meet up with you when I can. If Ultron's building a body…an android created by a robot…" He looked at Steve. Steve sighed.

"You know, I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me," he muttered.

* * *

Laura found Clint in the kids' room a few minutes later. He was geared up and ready to go, a look Laura usually found _way_ sexy. It wasn't a coincidence all their kids were born right after Clint got back from a mission. Lila and Cooper were in Cooper's bed reading. Laura leaned in the door, watching as Clint finished constructing the wooden train track on their floor. He looked up when he saw Laura. He got up and kissed both kids on the forehead. "I love you both, you know that?" he asked them. They nodded. He wrapped them in a hug, enjoying the moment. These moments got him through the fight. This was waiting for him when he got home. "I will see you soon," he promised. "Just a short trip to Korea. You guys want anything?"

"Sushi!" Lila said, and Clint cocked his head sideways to look at her. "It looks pretty!" Lila explained, as if that was obvious.

"Maybe something that will last the plane ride back," Clint decided instead. He grinned, and kissed them both again. "I love you munchkins. I'll see you later."

"Good night, Dad," Cooper said for the both of them. Clint could tell his son was trying to show him he'd take care of the family. He'd done a great job so far.

Clint stepped out into the hall, closing their door slightly behind them. "So, I'm going to finish tiling the sunroom when I get back," he told Laura.

"Yeah, and then you'll find another part of the house to tear apart," Laura kidded.

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. "No," he told her. "Last project. I promise."

Laura looked up at him, hearing something in his words. Clint tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and kissed her. When he pulled back, Laura looked at him. "You mean that?" she asked him, trying not to let the hope sink in too much.

He nodded. "I do," he told her, and the words held even more promise than they had at their wedding. Laura hugged him.

"You being human reminds this team what they're fighting for," she told him. "You keep them down to earth." She let go of him and looked up at him. "You're the most important person on that team in my opinion," she said.

"You're just sayin' that 'cause you married me," Clint countered with a smile.

She shook her head, all seriousness. "No. I say it because it's true. And I'm always right."

"I love you, you know that?" The words left his mouth before he had a chance to think about them. "I love you."

Laura nodded, reaching up to give him another kiss goodbye. "I love you too. Stay safe."

She said that every time he left the house. But he never answered her back with an "I will" or "No problem." Because he knew it was a promise he might not be able to keep.


	9. Chapter 9

_Seoul, South Korea_

"You sure you want me to drop you off _here_?" Clint asked Steve.

Steve nodded, adjusting his helmet and grabbing his shield. He locked it into place on the magnetic panels on the back of his uniform. "Yeah. Don't want to get too close, don't want Ultron seeing the jet," he said. "Element of surprise."

"There's something we haven't had in awhile," Natasha said from the jump seat. Clint smirked.

"Fine, then, Cap, this is your exit," Clint said, popping the side hatch. Steve jumped the ten feet to the rooftop easily, and stared out at the target, U-Gin Labs, a gleaming, glass-covered building. He started jogging across the rooftop, needing to build speed for a jump.

" _Two minutes_ ," Steve reported. " _Stay close_."

Then, he was leaping over the side of the building. Natasha saw him hit another roof and roll before disappearing over the side of that one as well. "Oh yeah," she told Clint, shaking her head. "We got screwed in the superpower department."

Clint grinned as he brought the jet around.

Two minutes later, they both heard, " _Dr. Cho!"_ over the comm, and Clint almost yanked on the yoke of the plane too hard. Helen's voice came in ragged spurts as she talked to Steve. Ultron had something in the regeneration cradle. With some kind of stone. Her voice was so faint it was hard to understand, but Clint got the basic gist-Ultron made something, and that something was _bad_.

" _Did you guys copy that?"_ Steve asked.

"Yeah, we did," Clint said. "Nat's looking for him now."

"I got a private jet taking off across town," Natasha said, monitoring one of the screens in the back. "No manifest. Could be him."

But then Clint spotted something else. "No, I've got him. Trucks with the lab logo. On the bridge," he added for Steve's benefit. "Three signatures. One in the cab, two in the back with the cradle." He aimed the nose gun at the lead truck. "I could take out the driver," he offered.

" _Negative!"_ Steve's voice rang sharply out. " _The power in the gem could level out the city,"_ he said. " _We need to draw Ultron out."_ Clint watched, following behind the two trucks, as Steve leapt off an overpass and onto the top of one of the trucks. It never failed to impress him. He wondered why Cap had never tried American Ninja Warrior.

And then, Steve went flying off the truck as the back doors popped off their hinges, leaving Steve hanging on for dear life. _"Well, he's definitely unhappy,"_ Steve groaned. Clint saw him fighting to keep purchase and not fall off into traffic. Inside the truck, Ultron's glowing red eyes appeared, searching for Steve. " _I'm gonna try to keep him that way!"_

"Cap, you're not a match for him," Clint said. Natasha turned in her seat and narrowed her eyes. "What?" he defended himself. "It's true!"

In his ear, he heard Steve say sarcastically, " _Thanks, Barton."_

Clint kept the jet on the truck's tail as Ultron appeared from the hold. He and Steve got into it, Steve throwing his shield, kicks and punches. Until Ultron got ahold of it by ripping it from his chest, where Steve had planted it a few moments ago. He slammed it into Steve, knocking him over the top of the trailer and onto the hood, then tossing away Cap's shield like so much garbage.

"Well, hell," Natasha said unbuckling her belt. She got up and went to the back, pulling the safety straps off a slick silver motorcycle. Clint brought the jet in low behind the trucks. "I got you a window," he said, seeing what she was doing. "Ready?"

Natasha straddled the bike. She tossed him a thumbs up.

"Four…three…two…" Clint hit the cargo bay door opener, and Natasha and the bike dropped out of the hold onto the highway. Within moments she was caught up to the truck, snagging Cap's shield on the way through the vehicles. "Give 'em hell, Nat!" he yelled at her through the comms. Then, his eyes were back searching for the trucks so Tasha could catch up. "They're heading under the overpass," Clint reported. "I've got no shot."

" _Which way?"_ Natasha yelled.

"East," Clint replied, tailing them.

" _Left or right?"_ He could practically hear the eye roll.

"Right! Go right!" he ordered her. Clint watched Natasha cut through a side street to catch up. Ahead of her, Steve was blasted off the top of the truck again into a sedan behind them. Cap hit the windshield of the other car, shattering it. Clint wished like hell he could just _shoot_ them and be done with it. Their team leader ricocheted off the car and bounced back up to Ultron. " _Come on!"_ he goaded Ultron.

" _Clint, can you draw off the guards?"_ Natasha was asking him.

_Finally, someone is going to let me shoot something._ "Let's find out!" Clint swung the jet down low and unleashed the gun, firing at Ultron as Steve ducked. He could see Ultron's glowing eyes. He looked pissed. _Good!_ Clint thought to himself, and then the two robots from the truck in front were on him, and he pulled the jet straight up into the air. One of them caught up and Clint jerked in surprise as it started trying to shoot through the bulletproof canopy. "The hell you don't!" Clint protested, pulling the jet straight up, then cranking it into a serious barrel roll. The maneuver worked, it shook off both 'bots who went flailing into the blue sky. Pretty soon, they righted themselves and Clint saw them head back toward the fight. He hit the dash. "Damn it. They're headed back towards you! Whatever you're gonna do, _do it!"_

" _I got it. Going in. Cap, keep him occupied!"_ That was Natasha.

" _What do you_ think _I've been doing?!"_ Steve yelled back.

Coming out from under an overpass, Clint saw the two drone bots lift the semi off the ground and up into the air. He didn't see Cap or Natasha. "Cap?" he demanded.

" _In the train!"_ he heard Steve's voice yell.

"Tasha?"

He didn't get an answer. He followed the trailer and got it in the crosshairs. "Hey, I've got a shot at the truck," he yelled.

" _Negative!"_ That was Tasha.

"Tasha, where are you?" Clint barked over the radio.

" _I'm_ in _the truck!"_ she yelled back.

Clint's jaw dropped. "What-"

"Shut up. Get ready, I'm sending the package to you!"

Clint popped the read cargo bay ramp. "How do you want me to take it?" he asked her, trying to keep his voice level.

" _Um…you don't really want the answer to that question_ ," Natasha countered.

Then, Clint heard Steve. " _I lost Ultron! But the Maximoffs are here…and I think they're on our side!"_ He didn't have time to think about that. He spotted Ultron making a straight line for the truck. "Nat, come _on_!" he yelled.

" _Okay. Coming."_ Her voice sounded _way_ too calm. Clint glanced back over his shoulder through the open door. Something was falling from the trailer. Something with a _person_! "Holy _shit_!" Clint yelled as the cradle slammed into the jet with Tasha holding on for dear life. The cradle slid to a stop, slamming Clint into the dash of the plane. He looked back.

And got a face full of Ultron. The robot was right behind Natasha. He grabbed her ankle and yanked her from the quinjet. "Nat!" Clint gasped. "Cap! Ultron, I think he got Nat!" He moved to swing the plane around.

" _If you've got the package, get it to Stark!"_ Steve's voice came mixed with screeching metal.

"Do you have eyes on Nat?" Clint asked, desperate. He didn't see them. Didn't see anything. Just blue sky.

" _Go!"_ Steve commanded. " _That's an order, Barton!"_

"God _damn_ it!" Clint yelled furiously, pulling the jet up and away, closing the cargo hatch before their target slid out again. As the sky filled his horizon, he pounded on the windshield with his fist. _Will's gone, Ultron's got Natasha..._ The universe was pissed at him. His two best friends were gone. "I'm sorry, okay?" he yelled to no one. "I swear to God I'll make it right," he told the sky. "Just...give me them back." The last sentence sounded completely defeated. He flew on for a while, following Steve's order.

_Oh, to hell with this._

He got halfway to Japan before turning back around. Clint piloted over the city, finding Steve amid the wreckage of a commuter train. Clint pulled the jet into a hover and looked down. _What the hell?_ The two Maximoff kids were with Steve. Talking to him like they were old friends. His annoying white-haired buddy looked out of breath. "New friends, Cap?" Clint bit.

" _The hell are you doing here?"_ Steve demanded, turning to look up at the jet. The Maximoffs' eyes followed it, and he thought he saw Pietro Maximoff cringe. " _I thought I told you-"_

"I'm not one of your soldiers, Cap," Clint informed him. "Ultron's taken too much of my family away from me and I'm sick of it. Besides, if I didn't come back, how are you and the Bobbsey Twins getting home?"

He could tell Steve didn't get the book reference, but he did get the first part. "Well, you know, it might be too late to fly commercial," Steve drawled. "This a non-stop flight to New York?"

Clint nodded, lowering the ramp. "Hell, yes." _And then a non-stop straight to hell for Ultron._


	10. Chapter 10

_New York City, New York_

Clint gripped the lid of the regeneration cradle with both hands and yanked. When that didn't pop it open, he jumped onto the lid to try to pull it open from the top.

"Anything on Natasha?" he heard Bruce ask Tony as they came into the lab, and his fingers turned white from the grip. He pulled, throwing himself into it.

Nothing.

_Nothing. A whole hell of a lot of_ nothing! He growled in frustration and jumped off the cradle. "This thing is stuck good," he told the two scientists needlessly.

"We'll need to access the programming, try to get in that way," Bruce told him. Clint searched his face, and finally saw it. The creases next to his eyes, the paleness in the glow of the lab lights.

Bruce _did_ like Natasha. A lot more than Clint thought. _Well, hell_.

"Any chance Natasha might leave you a message?" Tony was asking him, and he turned to focus on Stark. "Outside the internet, old school spy stuff?"

He was trying to get him out of the room. Clint wasn't stupid. Contrary to what Will thought… _Will._ God, he could use his brother right now. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I'll go see what I can find."

_If Nat is even still alive…_

* * *

Two hours later, Clint was fiddling with Tony's electronics. Monitoring everything. He didn't know why Tony had an old ham radio, but he was even tuned into that. Listening. Waiting. _All this does no good if Natasha's electronics on her suit are fried. Or if she's dead._

He was furious. First his brother. Then his partner. He was losing everything. He couldn't. He needed to find Tasha. He _had_ to-

It was so faint, he almost missed it. He turned the dial back on the ham radio and listened.

Clicks. _Not clicks_ , Clint realized, sliding the volume up. _Morse code._ One set of three numbers.

Numbers he knew. They'd gotten those coordinates from Maria Hill and Fury on their first foray into Sokovia. Nobody knew how they'd gotten the location of the scepter and Strucker's base, but they had it, and they send in the Avengers. Natasha must have still had her comm unit, and though she couldn't use words, that didn't stop her from sending out the message.

_Found you_. He smiled, relieved. Then, his eyes darkened. _Got you, Ultron, you son of a bitch._

"Shut it down!"

Clint froze. Then, he realized the voices were coming from above him. He got up from his chair and approached the stairs, peering up and over the rail.

"Nope. Not gonna happen," Tony's voice said.

"You don't know what you're doing," Steve was saying.

"Oh, and _you_ do?" That was Bruce. That was surprising to Clint. He'd never heard Bruce raise his voice to Steve. Tony, sure, but Tony was annoying. " _She's_ not in your head?" Clint could now see the Maximoff twins standing behind Steve. Steve had been debriefing them when they'd returned to Stark Tower, against the vote of everyone else who thought they should both be buried _under_ the tower. But Steve had explained what Wanda and Pietro had done in Seoul. A few good deeds didn't make up for the rest in Clint's book, but he wasn't team leader, so….his vote didn't count.

"I know you're angry," the soft lilt of the youngest Maximoff's voice began, but Bruce cut her off.

"Oh, we're _way_ past that," he growled. "I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade," he hissed at her.

"Banner, after all that's happened-" Steve interjected, and Wanda added, "You don't know what is _in_ there!"

The momentary argument was all Pietro needed. Clint watched-more felt, but watched-Pietro race around the cradle, unplugging everything feeding into it. Clint shook his head. _This kid…_ He ducked back down into the lab and pulled his pistol from his ankle holster, and fired it up into the ceiling. Then, he watched with satisfaction as the floor fell out from under Pietro Maximoff and the quick little blur landed at his feet. Clint stepped on his knees, pinning him to the floor, and aimed his gun between his eyes.

"Pietro!" he heard Wanda cry from upstairs.

Clint looked down at the kid. "What?" he asked him. "You didn't see that one coming? Wanna see who's faster?" he taunted him."

Upstairs, an alarm tone sounded. "I'm rerouting the-" Tony began, but was cut off but Steve's shield. It knocked him sideways as it bounced off the computer array. Tony pulled an Iron Man gauntlet from who knew the hell where and fired at Steve, knocking him on his ass. Clint took his foot off Pietro with a warning glance as he came upstairs with his pistol drawn. Wanda moved to do something, but Bruce grabbed her from behind in a passable choke hold. "Try it," he dared her.

"Hey, guys?" Clint tried to cut in, but nobody was listening. He saw Tony and Steve go at it, Steve getting blasted through a plate glass window. Bruce was knocked backwards from a burst of energy from Wanda.

And then, Thor entered the room. Clint dove behind a desk as Thor landed on top of the cradle, pulled Mjlonir, and called forth the biggest burst of lightning from inside a room Clint had ever seen. The whole cradle lit up, bright white and blue.

The lid popped open, flying into Thor and sending him across the room as well. A body came forth from the cradle, lithely jumping, catlike, to sit on top of it. Metal and maroon-looking skin covered it. His eyes glowed blue before turning to a dark shade of black. It looked around the room at everyone, slowly. In the center of his head, Clint could see a glowing, oval stone.

And then, it moved. Quicker than Steve, it leapt toward Thor. Thor managed to duck and throw his arms out, throwing it over his head and into the main living area. The figure managed to flip midair and pause right before it crashed out into the New York City night.

Clint watched it as it floated in midair. Almost like it was looking at itself in the window reflection. Steve moved to throw his shield, but Thor held a hand out. "Wait." He set Mjlonir down and cautiously approached the figure. The fight forgotten for the moment, everyone filed into Tony's sunken living room and stared at this…thing.

It floated into the center of the room. Then, it spoke. "I am sorry." Clint heard the familiar lilt of JARVIS in his voice. _The hell?_

"That was…odd. Thank you," it said, turning to Thor. After a moment, something generated from his chest. An armor breastplate, and a cape of gold. Similar to Thor's. Like it was saying thank you for not killing it.

"Thor…" Steve began. "You helped… _create_ this thing."

"I had a vision," Thor said. He pointed to the thing's forehead, where the yellow gem glowed. "That is the Mind Stone," he explained. "one of the six Infinity Stones _._ The greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its' destructive capabilities."

"Then why would you-"

"Because Stark is right," Thor said and Bruce coughed.

"Ohh…it's definitely the end times," Bruce drawled. Tony shot him a Look.

"The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron," Thor said.

"Not alone," the figure countered.

" _Why_ does he sound like JARVIS?" Steve demanded.

"We uploaded JARVIS's matrix," Tony said.

It turned to Steve. "You think I'm a child of Ultron. I'm not Ultron. I'm not JARVIS. I am…I am…"

"Thor's 'vision'?" Clint offered. The thing turned to face him and Clint swallowed. Then...it smiled. "Vision," it tried it out. "Yes. Perhaps I am."

"I looked in your head and I saw annihilation," Wanda spoke up timidly from the back of the room. The figure turned to her, and Pietro took a step in front of her.

"Look again," "Vision" said.

"Yeah, your seal of approval doesn't mean jack to me right now," Clint cut in.

"If the Mind Stone were on our side-" Thor began, but Steve glared at him.

"Yeah, but _is_ it?" he asked. "On our side?"

"I don't think it's that simple," the Vision began.

"It better _get_ real simple real soon," Clint threatened.

"I am on the side of life. Ultron isn't. He will end it all." Vision spoke as if it were fact, not a guess. No one in the room argued the fact.

"What's he waiting for?" Steve asked it.

"You," Vision replied simply.

"Where?" Tony asked.

"Sokovia," Clint said. He knew the answer to that one. "He's got Nat there." The Vision looked at him, not seeming surprised that he knew. It was like the Vision knew that he knew already. It was...disconcerting. Clint didn't like feeling unsettled.

"If we're wrong about you…if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be," Bruce said, looking at the thing, "what will you do?"

Vision floated so it was facing Bruce. "I don't want to kill Ultron. He's unique. And he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the earth, so he must be destroyed. Every trace of him. Every trace of his presence on the…'Net," it added. He turned away from Bruce and floated out toward the windows again. "And none of us," it said, looking around the room, "can do it without the other."

Vision continued, thoughtfully. "Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one. I'm not what you are," he said with a look at Thor. "And not what you intended," he continued, looking at Tony. Then, he looked at Steve. "So there may be no way to make you trust me," it said, turning to look at them. "But we need to go."

Clint's jaw dropped.

Vision was holding Mjolnir. It held it out to Thor. There was silence. The Maximoffs didn't have a clue what'd just transpired, but the Avengers did. _Whosoever shall be worthy…_ Clint remembered. _What the hell._

Mjolnir had solved the trust issue. Vision, apparently, was more…worthy, than anybody standing in the room save its owner.

"All right," Thor said, after a moment. "Well done," he added to a slackjawed Tony.

Steve blinked. "Um. Three minutes. Get your gear."

Clint was still blinking as he headed for the elevator. As the doors closed on him, all he could think was _Man, I wish Will would've seen that_.

Inside his gear closet, Clint "Hawkeye" Barton pulled a photo from the inside of his gear locker of Laura, Cooper, and Lila. He'd taken it on a free summer day. Laura had dragged him away from repairing the banister of the outside steps, saying the kids were going on a picnic and wanted Mommy and Daddy to go too. They'd walked down to the small creek that ran through the property and spread out on the grass. Clint kept a spot mowed for them to hang out, catch minnows, read, whatever.

_One more project_ , his mind echoed.

He closed his eyes and tucked the photo into his uniform, trapping it at his heart between his Under Armour sleeveless shirt and his Kevlar vest. "One more," he whispered, and got up to join the others.


	11. Chapter 11

_Sokovia- two days earlier_

Will stepped off the bus and into the chilly Sokovia morning. Iowa had seemed so much warmer...temperature-wise, anyway. Anger bubbled up and he forced it back down. He started walking down the main street, past the bakery he'd stopped at his first morning in country, which was now empty, two gaping black holes where the windows used to be. The awning over the front door was hanging on by a corner of the frame. He shouldered his backpack and kept walking, heading in the general direction he remembered the Hotel Blue to be. The firefight didn't seem to have made it this far down the street, and the Hotel Blue stood before him, five floors mostly intact. He could see some burn marks and shell marks on the outer walls but otherwise, it appeared fine.

He went into the hotel and up two flights of stairs, knocking on the door of 212 and waiting. After a moment, Benji opened the door and wrapped him in a bone crushing hug. "Jesus, Will, what the hell?" Benji asked by way of greeting.

"Hi-oof-to you too, Benj," Will groaned. Over Benji's shoulder, he spotted Ethan sitting cross-legged on the bed searching through 8x10 photos. "Hey, Ethan."

Ethan gave him a distracted wave. Will knew it wasn't personal; Ethan was probably in the middle of something. Benji finally let go and Will dropped his bag inside the door.

"So, where the hell have you been? Is your brother okay?" Benji asked him. Will walked over to the bed and flopped down, folding his arms behind his head.

"I've been...well, in New York and Wakanda," Will said. "Long story. As for my brother, yeah, he's great. Clint's great." He rolled his eyes. "Except for the part where he's a crap brother."

"I never thought I'd hear that from you," Ethan spoke up, never taking his eyes off the photos on the bed. Will turned his head to see Ethan.

"Yeah, well, up 'til now, I'd never have thought it would be true," Will shrugged. "Turns out my brother's been keeping a secret for ten years. A big one. He's got a family. A whole damn family-a wife, two kids-"

"What?" Benji was slackjawed. "That...that's not in his file."

"It sure as hell isn't," Will agreed. "Nooo, they've been living on a farm in Iowa for the past ten years. Best part is, they know about me. They know what Clint does for a living...but I didn't have a clue about them. Oh, Natasha knew, sure, but not me. Not his brother. 'Cause I mean, why would you tell your brother over your partner, right?"

Benji gave a low whistle. "Wow. Well...uh, he must have had a good reason for keeping them from you, right?"

Will snorted. "Sure," he drawled. "Oh, he was _protecting_ them. From me. Because I'm crap at keeping secrets, I guess. I mean, never mind the fact that I managed to keep the fact that I had an Avenger for a brother, or that I work for a secret government agency...no, I can't be trusted with the fact that my brother has a family. I'm an uncle, Benj, and I never even knew it!"

"Sometimes keeping secrets is necessary," Ethan spoke up quietly from the bed. He finally broke eye contact with the photos and shifted to look at Will.

Will raised an eyebrow as he realized what Ethan was talking about. "Ethan, I...that's not the same thing."

"Isn't it? Remember what I told you about Julia?" Ethan asked him. "That night in Seattle," he prompted, as if the moment wasn't ingrained in Will's memory for life. "What did I tell you?"

Will closed his eyes. "That it wasn't my job to protect her," he said. His eyes snapped open and he rolled to face Ethan. "I don't-"

"Some secrets need to be kept," Ethan said simply. "I know you guys tell each other a lot-probably more than you _should_ ," he added meaningfully. Will opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling-he hated it when Ethan seemed to know everything about him. It happened in Dubai and it was happening now. "Try to see it from his side. He's got something so precious that he was willing to hide their existence to keep them safe." Ethan offered him a small smile. "I know what that's like. I'm not saying he was _right_ to keep it from you," he added as Will opened his mouth to argue. "But think about it for a second. If you had a wife and two kids...what would _you_ do to keep them safe? To keep them away from all the crazy stuff that we deal with on a weekly basis?"

_Shit._ Will ran a hand through his hair. "Damn it, man, I hate it when you're right."

"Which is a lot," Benji pointed out helpfully, and Will glared at him as Ethan chuckled.

Will sat up. "You might be right, Ethan," he pointed out. "But I'm still not okay with the fact that he's been keeping this from me for ten years. I can't forgive him for it just yet."

"That's fine," Ethan shrugged. "We've got an op to finish, if you feel like doing some work to keep your mind off it."

"Sounds good," Will agreed. He pushed his anger at his brother to the back burner and sat on the edge of the other bed. "All right. Tell me where we're at."

His fingers itched to call his brother. But he ignored the feeling.

* * *

_Sokovia-Now_

"Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire." Steve was briefing them as Clint flew them into a landing zone out in the forest outside Strucker's castle. Clint was only half-listening. "That's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia-" here he turned to Pietro and Wanda- "they didn't. So our first priority is to get them out. All they want is to live their lives in peace. And that's not gonna happen, but we can do our best to protect them and get the job done." He took a breath, and looked around at the group. "Find out what Ultron's been building. Find Romanoff. Clear the field. Keep the fight between us. Ultron thinks we're monsters, that we're what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating him," he added as an afterthought. He looked at Tony. "It's about whether or not he's right."

Clint set the jet down smoothly in the forest. Steve broke them into teams and sent them toward the city. The castle was showing no signs of life signatures of any form, save for one heat signature. Bruce volunteered to go check it out. It would keep the Hulk away from the firefight until he was needed. Steve sent everyone else into the capital to start evacuating people, to get them as far away as they could.

"You better bring my partner back," Clint told Bruce as he handed Bruce a semi-automatic pulse rifle.

Bruce was quiet. "About that," Clint added. "If you guys wanna…you know…whatever," he said. "I'm fine with it." He smiled at the scientist. "I think you're good for each other."

Bruce gave him a small smile and a nod, and then he disappeared into the early dawn. The sun wasn't even up in Sokovia yet, and Clint hoped with the dawn came the end of Ultron. He followed Steve and the others into the city. Pietro took off toward the police station, while Wanda stepped into a small square near a bakery and closed her eyes. Clint watched tendrils of red energy wisp from her fingers. When she opened her eyes, they were red. Clint was getting the unsettling urge to _Go. Get as far away from here as you can._ He realized it was coming from her. Moments later, people were walking out of their homes, heading out of town.

* * *

_Go. Get as far away from here as you can._

The message kept repeating itself in Will Brandt's head. He'd thrown himself headfirst into their surveillance op and had almost forgotten about his blowup with his brother. Now, though, this message was intruding on his thoughts, and it was making him feel like he had in Iowa. He needed to be anywhere but here.

Across the room, Benji's head snapped up from the table, where he'd been sleeping on his laptop. "Guys, we should go," he said, standing.

Ethan woke up from his position on the far bed in a t-shirt and sweats. "What's happening?" he asked.

"I don't know," Will replied, swinging his legs out of the other bed. "But I feel like we need to get out of here. And fast." He slipped into his shoes and grabbed a longsleeved shirt. He tucked a newly-issued service pistol in the waistband of his jeans. Across the room, Benji was likewise packing up their equipment. "Leave it," Ethan said. "There's no time. We can come back for it." Benji nodded in agreement and the three men made their way out of the Hotel Blue and out into the street. Around them, people were making their way on foot and vehicle, headed out of the city. They joined in with the crowd.

And then Will saw a familiar face in red, white and blue, and he blinked. Instantly, the thought of _Go…Get as far away from here as you can,_ was gone. In its place was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Will grabbed Benji's arm and yanked _hard._ The pain jolted Benji out of his trancelike state, and the tech turned field agent was blinking furiously. "Will. What-?" Will was waking Ethan. As their team leader came back to reality, Will jogged over to Steve, who was standing on the bridge directing traffic and hustling people along. "Cl- _Will?_ " Steve said, realizing it was the other Brandt brother. "What are you doing here?"

"Finishing up our op," Will replied, jerking a thumb back to Ethan and Benji. "You guys?"

"Small world," Steve said back. "Ultron's here. This is where he's planning his endgame."

"What's an Ultron?" Benji asked with a raised hand. His question went ignored as Will thought of something.

"Where…." Will swallowed. "Where's Clint? Home with his family?"

"No," Steve replied. He waved a hand back at the city. "Out there somewhere. He came with us to help end this. Ultron took Natasha and Clint's out for blood." Captain America frowned. "Or, you know, whatever's in Ultron."

"Is he _insane?"_ Will demanded. "He could get killed out here."

"He knows," Steve replied. "But he didn't want anybody else getting hurt, so…"

Will pinched the bridge of his nose, a feeling of guilt flooding through him. He knew very well what Steve meant with _anybody else_. "I need to find him. Um, Ethan and Benji could help you guys get people out of town, if you want," Will offered his team. The two other men nodded.

"You should get out of here, Will," Steve replied. "You're not as…equipped as the rest of us to handle this."

"I survived the Battle of New York," Will quoted an oft-famous t-shirt. "I'll be all right. Thanks, Cap." With a wave, he jogged back over to Ethan and Benji. Steve sighed.

"They're both stubborn," he shook his head. "Must run in the family."

* * *

Clint was watching the evacuation proceedings from a nearby bridge. He was watching a young couple as they left their home and joined the crowds. He squinted. Something wasn't right.

The earth had just moved. Literally. Suddenly, an Ultron bot clawed its way out of the pavement right behind them, and Clint put an arrow through its' eye socket. The arrows were specially charged with a low-level EMP to take them out. "Cap!" he yelled into the comm. "They're-"

" _Everywhere_!" Steve responded. " _Look alive, everybody!"_

One tried to pop up behind him over the bridge ledge, but Clint heard the metal fingers on the brick, and he whirled and jabbed the arrow inbetween its' eyes. Down the walkway, Wanda Maximoff yelled "Run!" as the bots started overrunning them. Clint took aim, but Wanda threw up a red shield of energy and the bots' ammo sailed off them. He didn't see the one that blasted Wanda from behind. She dropped to the pavement, and Clint fired an arrow into its' chest before sprinting down to help her. Wanda was looking up at him with fear in her eyes.

_Shit,_ Clint realized. _They really_ are _just kids!_ These two were no different than Coop and Lila. Bad decisions or no decisions...Wanda and Pietro were just two lost _kids_ with nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to. Except each other. And... _and us_. Clint sighed. He picked her up. "Come on, Wanda, we gotta get moving." She was shaking. He put an arm around her and they half-walked, half-ran off the bridge.

"Clint!"

_No way_. Clint whipped around. His eyes widened.

* * *

Will spotted his brother as he came running up to the end of the bridge. "Clint!" he yelled over the sounds of destruction.

He saw Clint look up, and then he saw the giant _crack_ that was spreading under his feet. Will dove to one side as the earth split open in front of him. The crack split the bridge away from the surface where Clint was standing, Wanda Maximoff in tow. Will looked at Clint, then down.

_What would Clint Barton do?_ he thought to himself. Then, decision made. Will took a few steps back…and jumped.


	12. Chapter 12

Clint almost dropped Wanda. " _Will!_ he yelled. His brother was airborne over the gap...and then just as suddenly, he disappeared. " _No!"_ Clint sprinted as close to the edge as he dared get and looked over the edge. His boots skidded on the broken pavement as he looked down- _wait, down_?

They were _rising_. Sokovia was _rising._ And Will….where the hell was he? Clint peered over the side, searching. _No. No, no. no._

Something grabbed his foot and he almost put an arrow in it. He yelped and looked down to see Will with an iron grip on his boot. Clint reached down and pulled Will onto the walkway, heaving him over with both hands, muscles straining. The two of them collapsed on the ground. Will was breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his forehead. "What the _fuck_ Will?" Clint demanded. "You could've gotten yourself _killed_. What are you _doing_ here?"

"Saving your ass," Will breathed. Clint looked at him and snorted in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me right now? You're saving _my_ ass" he asked him. "What are you doing here, really?"

"Ethan and Benji and I were finishing an op," Will gasped. "Next thing I knew, I had this sudden urge to get out of the city."

"That was me," Wanda Maximoff spoke up shyly from behind them.

Will raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Thanks for that," he told her. She nodded and swallowed. "Anyway, now that I'm here…and uh, not going anywhere but up," he added, "how can I help?"

"I'm sorry." The words left Clint's mouth before he could think about it. "For everything."

Then, a voice. Amplified through the thousands of Ultron bots floating around the city. " _Do you see? The beauty in it? The inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You…Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword. And the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh away from me…"_

Clint fired an arrow at the bot above their heads, from whom the voice seemed to be emanating. It dropped, but another took its' place. He couldn't drown out the voice. Wanda had her hands over her ears.

" _When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world, will be metal_." Ultron's voice was deadly.

"Screw you, Ultron!" Will yelled as Clint dropped another Ultron bot to the pavement. "Apologize later," he snapped at his brother. "We need to move."

Clint stared at Will. A pair of stubborn matching eyes glared back at him. "Fine," Clint said shortly. "We've gotta drop these bots."

"You do that," Will said. "I'll help clear the street, give you guys clean shots." He took off at a run, grabbing a young woman by the arm and pulling her with him. Clint drew his bow and fired ahead of Will, dropping an Ultron bot just behind him. He turned and took out another. Wanda was crouched next to an old German beater car, an Ultron bot inbound. Wanda threw up her shield, and the bot bounced off the top of it and careened into a building. Clint ran over the top of the car, flipped midair, and shot the bot in the eye, knocking it out of commission.

He looked up. There were five more inbound. They all aimed at the two of them. _Oh, come on!_ Clint reached down and grabbed Wanda's hand. "Go, go!" he yelled, and shoved her ahead of him. The two of them jumped through a window, landing hard. Wanda was crying, hysterical. Clint rolled off of her. "Are you okay?" he demanded, glancing back behind them at the open window. Apparently, the bots had found a new target, as they weren't shooting through the windows, and he prayed his brother was out of their way.

"It's all our fault." Wanda was sobbing.

Clint shook his head. _Seriously, I know she's just a kid but we don't have time for this._ His brother was off playing superhero ( _pot, meet kettle)_ , and he was hiding in a building in a flying city with a twenty-something kid with magical powers. He bent down so he was at her eye level. "Hey, look at me. It's your fault, it's our fault, it's everybody's fault. Who cares? Are you up for this?" When she didn't answer, he gave her a little shake. " _Are_ you? Look, I just need to know because the city…it's flying. Okay? The city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots...and I have a bow and arrow. And none of this makes sense." He pointed a guarded hand out the broken window. "But I'm going back out there because it's my _job_. And I can't do that and babysit."

He tipped her chin so she was looking right at him. It was a move he did with Lila and Cooper sometimes when he wanted to drive a point home. Usually about cleaning their rooms. _Or when they worried that he'd never come back_. "No matter what you did or what you were, if you go out there, you _fight_ , and you fight to kill. Okay? If you stay in here, that's fine. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you're an Avenger."

She was silent.

Clint rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. "Okay. Good chat." He rubbed his eyes with his hand and stood up. Then, he took a breath and made his way toward the door of the small shop they'd landed in. _Here we go._ He burst out the broken doorframe and into the street, drew two arrows and nocked them both, sticking a guarded finger between them. He fired, and the two arrows went spiraling off, nailing two of the bots in the chest. Then, he whipped around and fired at another one. One tried to knock him off his feet, but Clint took the arrow from his bow, spun it, and jabbed it into the bot from behind.

He heard movement on the pavement, and whipped around. A hand grabbed his wrist and cranked it sideways. "Jesus, big brother, don't freakin' shoot!" Will barked at him.

"Welcome back!" Clint yelled at him. Then, both brothers were knocked off their feet, landing on top of each other against a broken street lamp. "You okay?" Clint asked from his position on top of Will.

"Get the hell off me," Will groaned, shoving his brother to the side. "Where's Wanda?"

As if to answer his question, the door on the building across the street flew open-on its' own- and Wanda Maximoff stepped into the street. Her eyes were blood red, and she turned her gaze to a bot in the air above her. Her hands made a ripping motion and the bot split in half. She flung the pieces separate ways, and fired a blast of energy at another.

She turned her gaze to the two brothers. "That was a hell of a pep talk," Clint whispered as he stood, offering Will a hand. "We're clear!" Clint yelled into the comms.

" _We're not clear_!" Steve yelled from somewhere else in the city. " _We are so not clear!"_

"Okay, we're coming to you!" Clint said, turning to Wanda and Will. Or rather, just Will. Wanda disappeared in a blur.

"Keep up, old man!" an accented voice yelled, echoing off the buildings.

Will looked at his brother. Clint looked _pissed_. He had an arrow aimed in the general direction that Pietro Maximoff must have taken his sister. "Nobody would know," he groused.

"I would," Will pointed out. "Let's go." He grinned as they started jogging. "You're starting to like those two, aren't you?"

"Hell no," Clint replied. "It'd have been so easy to tell Cap, 'Last I saw Pietro, an Ultron was sitting on him. Guy'll be missed. I miss him already, that quick little bastard.'"

"Yeah, I'm convinced," Will rolled his eyes. "Come on." He clapped his brother on the back and the two of them made their way toward the sounds of combat. "By the way," he said as they jogged. "I'm sorry too," he said. "I guess I can understand why you kept Laura and the kids a secret from us."

"It wasn't _you_ I was trying to keep the secret from," Clint argued. "It was everything _else."_

"Yeah, I know. I guess it's kinda like Croatia," Will continued, and Clint raised an eyebrow. This was the first time Will had voluntarily mentioned that mission since the first time he'd explained it, years ago. "I mean, Ethan didn't tell anybody his wife was alive. Even the people he trusted."

"Still," Clint countered. "We don't keep secrets. _Ever_. I'm so sorry, Will, I never meant for this to go on this long. I thought maybe I'd get to retire and then it wouldn't be such a threat anymore." They turned a corner. "I am, you know. Retiring."

"What?" Will skidded to a stop, looked at his brother. "You're _what_?"

"Retiring," he said. He waved a hand. "This is it. This is my last mission. I'm done after this."

"You think you can just quit being an Avenger? Just like that?"

"I'm going to," Clint said. "No more after this. Laura and the kids-all three of them-need me at home. And frankly, I'm tired of all this crap," he said. "They can handle it without me."

Will shook his head. "You know, I think you'd be surprised," he said.

"Surprised by what?" Clint asked him as they came to a stop.

Will looked him in the eye. "How much they need you on this team," he said. "But man, if you think you can give it all up for your family…then I'm glad for you." He scuffed the dirt. "At least you've got something to go home to."

"You do too," Clint pointed out.

Will sniffed. "Yeah," he said, "the six pack of Equis in my fridge."

"No," Clint countered. "Your niece and nephews."

"Seriously?" Will asked.

"Yeah," Clint said. "I think it's high time Cooper found out where his middle name came from anyway."

The two brothers hugged, right there in the middle of the street. On a flying city. Will would remember later he didn't know what was stranger about the day-the flying city, or the fact that the normally-stoic Clint was the one who initiated the hug.

Then, there was a voice in Clint's ear. " _Are you guys done with the Notebook moment?"_ Tony demanded. " _Cavalry's here!"_

The two brothers broke apart and Clint looked up. "Cavalry?" he repeated. But then, he smiled as a shadow fell over them and he pointed skyward-which was getting closer the whole time. Will followed his gaze. A SHIELD helicarrier was floating in the sky next to them.

" _Fury, you son of a bitch!"_ Steve gasped.

" _Whoo, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"_ Fury countered.

Clint doubled over laughing. Will, not being able to hear the conversation, was thoroughly confused. But then he was laughing too. It felt good. He looked at his brother. Clint was still shaking silently, but must have been listening for instructions, because the next thing Will knew, Clint was taking off at a run, and Will was following him.


	13. Chapter 13

The two brothers met Steve, Ethan, and Benji back in what probably had used to be a nice-looking plaza, but was now mostly rubble and smoke. "All right, Fury's sending down lifeboats to get the people off this rock," Steve was telling Ethan and Benji. "Get them on, and then get the hell off this rock," he ordered them.

Will saw Ethan open his mouth like he was going to argue. "Ethan," he said quietly, and his IMF team leader looked at him. Ethan had never seen Will look so tired. "Just go," Will said finally, and Ethan, amazingly, didn't argue. He looked at Benji.

"Come on, Benj," he said. He looked at Will and grinned. "Captain America just gave us an order."

Benji laughed. "Aye, aye, Cap'n," he teased. He looked at Will, clapped him on the shoulder. Will grasped his arm and squeezed. "Be careful, yeah?" Benji told him, and then, he was following Ethan into the crowds of people.

"All right," Will said, rubbing his hands together. "Where do we go?"

Steve pointed to a building nearby. Wanda, and a few dozen Sokovians, were crouched underneath an overhang, waiting. Clint took off at a jog, Will right behind him. "All right, come on," Clint told them. Wanda repeated the phrase in the native language, and people cautiously started moving. Will kept up a lame attempt at perimeter guard. It was…odd. There wasn't an Ultron bot in sight. It made him very uncomfortable. He saw his brother's eyes keep drifting toward the sky too, and knew he was worried.

Just then, a squad of them flew over their heads, heading toward the middle of the city. _"Avengers, time to work for a living,"_ Tony announced from somewhere above Clint's head.

Clint snapped straight up. "I gotta go," he announced to Will. He looked at Wanda. She was watching him, waiting to see what she needed to do. " _We_ have to go," he amended. "Can you finish this?"

Will nodded. "I don't like the idea of you going back in there," he told him, jerking a thumb back into the city.

"Me either," Clint agreed honestly. "But it's my job," he shrugged, with a sideways look at Wanda. "We'll be back. It'll be fine. Get these people out of here, and then get on a boat."

"You really think I'd just leave you up here?" Will demanded.

"I'm older than you," Clint said. "This is an Avengers' op. I outrank you. That's an order."

Will raised an eyebrow. "You're pulling _rank_?"

Clint grinned and reached for Wanda's hand. "Yup." In his best imitation of Steve Rogers, he intoned, "That's an order, soldier!" and then he and Wanda were gone.

Will rolled his eyes. "Helen Cho should've replaced his personality," he complained to no one. Then he turned to a bunch of people still hiding. "You're still here?" he asked. "Seriously? Let's go, already!"

* * *

When Clint and Wanda arrived at the church, Pietro, Thor, Steve and Vision were already there. The four of them had set up a strange defensive perimeter around the middle of the room, where a metal….something….jutted out. Pietro broke rank to throw his arms around his sister. "Are you good?" he asked her, checking her over for any sign of injury.

Wanda looked at Clint. "Yeah," she told her brother. Pietro was looking at Clint. Their eyes met, and there was an unspoken "Thank you," from Pietro. Clint gave him a nod.

Clint turned to Steve. "What's the drill?" he asked their team leader. He reached into his quiver for an arrow and nocked it on the string.

"This is the drill. If Ultron gets a hand on core we lose," Steve said matter-of-factly.

"Simple enough," Clint muttered. He heard a light laugh next to him and realized Natasha had taken up a spot next to him.

A few Ultron bots came flying in. Thor mangled one with Mjlonir. There was a burst of yellow light, and Vision had fried the others. "Is that best you can do?" Thor taunted Ultron, twirling Mjlonir in his hand.

Clint groaned. "Did he-?"

There was a metallic droning sound in the air. Then, as the Avengers, which now included Tony, who landed with a clunk near Thor, watched, their eyeline was suddenly filled with Ultron bots.

Steve frowned, and looked at Thor. "You _had_ to ask?"

Thor, for his part, managed to look somewhat apologetic.

"This is exactly what I wanted," Ultron hissed, landing on the ground in front of his army. "All of _you_ ….against all of _me…_ " His red eyes flashed. "How can you possibly hope to stop me?" he asked them.

" _Well_ ," Tony's voice echoed, " _like the old man said_ ," he began, with a look at Steve. " _Together."_

And then, the bots attacked.

* * *

"This one's full," a guy in a SHIELD t-shirt announced as Will came up to the lifeboat that was taking off. He'd just finished a run around a Sokovian block, looking for leftover people. He'd found a father and daughter huddled inside a smoking shell of a car, and convinced them to come with him to safety. The three of them now stood near the edge of the city, where the lifeboat floated, balancing on the edge.

Will took a breath. That was getting harder. "Is there another one coming?" he asked. He put a reassuring hand on the father's arm. Dad squeezed his little girl tighter.

The SHIELD agent pointed. "There's one about two city blocks that way," he told Will. "If you don't get there…you're not getting on."

Will rolled his eyes. "Thanks, that was helpful," he told him. He looked at the father. "Full," he said shortly. "Come on, this way." He urged them on at a run.

He hoped Ethan and Benji had made it onto a boat…hell, he hoped _he_ was going to make it onto a boat. He knew at least two guys that could fly but they were both busy…

* * *

Clint jabbed an arrow through the jaw of an Ultron bot and shoved it straight up into its head. He looked around, swinging his bow like a staff and caught another one, sending it flying upward into Vision's waiting arms. The android ripped him apart like he was tissue paper. Then, Vision turned his eyes down to the ground, and a bolt of yellow light emanated from the Mind Stone. Clint saw Tony burst from the inside of the church and fire a burst from the arc reactor in his chest. Ultron, he saw. They were trying to fry him. Thor joined a moment later with lightning from Mjlonir. Clint ducked a bot and threw an elbow, knocking it into Natasha, who fried the things' circuits with her Widow's Bites. He bent over, trying to catch his breath.

It was then that he realized the remaining bots had disappeared. "The hell?" he asked aloud.

"They'll try to leave the city," Steve said.

" _We can't let them, not even one…._ " Tony's voice was uncharacteristically grim. _"Hey, Rhodey_?" they heard him ask.

A few seconds later, there was machine gun fire. War Machine was on the ones trying to get away.

"We gotta move out, even I can tell the air is getting' thin," Steve told the others. Clint had been wondering why he couldn't catch his breath, and now he knew. "I'll stay here, sweep for stragglers," Steve told them.

"What about the core?" Clint asked, pointing at the metal contraption in the center of the room.

"I'll protect it."

Clint turned to Wanda. Her brother had zipped over and put a hand on her shoulder. "My job," she told them, with a look at Clint. She turned to her brother. "Get the people on the boats."

"I'm not going to leave you," Pietro declared. He looked at his sister, daring her to say otherwise.

She did. "Come back for me when all the people are gone. _Not_ before. Do you understand?" she asked her brother.

Pietro was silent for a moment. Then, he shook his head with a smile. "You know, I'm twelve minutes older than you," he reminded her.

"Seriously?" Clint murmured.

Natasha was next to him. "Isn't that-"

"Yeah," Clint replied quietly. "That's how much older I am than Will," he told Wanda and Pietro.

Pietro looked at him, mouth agape. Then, he grinned. "So you see, you should listen to me, _little_ sister," he told Wanda.

Wanda returned her brother's smile. "Go," she said, shoving him away as exactly a little sibling would do to an older, annoying one. It was something Clint had experienced personally.

Clint looked at Wanda. "You sure?" he asked her.

She rolled her eyes. "I do not need another big brother," she informed him. She looked at Pietro. "Both of you, get lost."

The two big brothers looked at each other. "Does your little brother talk to you like that?" Pietro asked as they made their way out into the street.

"All the damn time," Clint nodded. "And he wonders why I feel like I have to look out for him," he said. "Mouthing off, getting into trouble…"

"But then, that is why _we_ are the oldest," Pietro decided. "It is our job to keep them _out_ of trouble."

"When we can," Cint agreed. "And sometimes, you just have to let them get into trouble so they learn and grow up," he added quietly.

Pietro stumbled, something Clint found more shocking than his super speed. "It goes against what you are as the big brother, leaving her there," he said. "Believe me, I know. But you've got to trust she can look out for herself."

Pietro looked at him. "I trust her," he said simply. "But I would rather it be me, staying there, instead of her," he added.

Clint clapped him on the back. "Yeah, I get that," he said. He looked over to where Natasha had hot wired a German import, and looked at Pietro. "So. Riding, or running, Quicksilver?"

Pietro nodded thoughtfully. "Quicksilver…" he tried it out. "I like it," he decided, and then grinned. "Keep up, old man," he told Clint, and then, zipped away.

Clint groaned as Natasha laughed. "Come on, old man!" Natasha yelled from the driver's seat. "You heard the whippersnapper."

"Shut up," Clint told her as he hopped into the passenger seat.


	14. Chapter 14

Will saw the final lifeboat. Somehow, Steve was there, directing the last bit of traffic. "Will!" Steve yelled, seeing him. On the boat, Ethan and Benji were both strapped in, waiting to go. They both looked up at the sound of Will's name. Ethan saw Will running toward them, a man and a little girl on his heels.

"Got room for three more?" Will asked, breathlessly, as they came to a stop. The father and daughter were rushed onto the lifeboat. Steve did a fast count. "We're missing some people," he muttered. "Clint and Romanoff…Banner…"

"They're coming though, right?" Will asked. "I mean, they're on their way?"

"We gotta go!" yelled an agent in SHIELD gear.

Steve fixed him with a glare. "I've got people on this rock. We're not going anywhere. Give me five minutes!"

The guy looked like it was a hard decision whether or not to listen to Captain-freaking-America. Finally, he nodded. "Five minutes."

Will slipped past Cap and went to go sit next to Benji and Ethan. "Five minutes," he mumbled to himself. "Clint, hurry up and get your ass here…"

* * *

"I know what I need to do. The dining room. If I knock out the east wall, it'll make a nice work room for Laura. Put up some baffling. Can't hear the kids running around, what do you think?" Clint was rambling as he and Natasha sped through the streets-or 'sped' as fast as they could go with debris everywhere. He didn't know why he was talking. The air was so thin he felt like he was climbing a mountain.

Natasha played along. "You guys normally eat in the kitchen anyway, right?"

He grinned. "Nobody eats in a _dining_ room." His partner laughed. The two of them came to a stop about a hundred feet from one of the lifeboats. The last one, by the looks of it. Clint turned to Natasha. "Looks like we don't have a lot of time-" he began.

She shoved him. "Then get your ass on a boat," she shot back. "This isn't _Titanic_."

He laughed as he walked up the gangplank. "Cap," he greeted Steve, who looked relieved to see them. "Hey, is Will-"

Clint was encased in a bone-crushing hug. He staggered a bit and saw Will with his arms around him. "Oh. Hey. Never mind," he told Cap.

"You're so cute, I'm getting cavities," Natasha teased. "We need to get going," she said. "I haven't heard from Bruce and I have no idea where he is. The last I saw he was going after Ultron…." She was trying to sound calm, but Clint could hear the worry in her voice.

"Yeah, sounds good," Steve agreed. He clapped the SHIELD agent on the back. "Hey, we're ready to-"

Just then, a woman appeared from the side of the lifeboat, frantic. She grabbed the SHIELD agent and started speaking in a panic. "Costel!" she was yelling. "Costel!"

"What the hell is a Costel?" Clint asked.

Will stepped back, listening. "Her son, I think. Said he was with her in the market…"

Clint looked back toward the city. "Shit," he groused. "Kids's still out there somewhere." He pushed his brother's arms away and turned. "Can't leave him. Oh no. One kid left, typical. Could get to safety, but nooo."

"Wait!" Will yelled at him, and was about to jump off the gangway when a strong hand gripped his shirt and pulled him backwards.

"Are you guys _crazy?_ " Cap yelled from behind them. "Get your asses back here!"

"Let go of me, Cap!" Will yelled, trying to wrangle his way out of Steve's iron grip.

"No!" Steve yelled back. "You guys can't both go. He'll find the kid. There's no reason for you to follow!"

He shoved Will in a seat just as the city started to rumble. "Yeah, there is, he's my _brother_!" Will fought against his hands. "Get off me Steve! I have to go help him. I can't leave him out there!"

There was a flash of red, then a burst of black.

* * *

Ethan came to stand next to Cap, rubbing his fist, skin cracked from connection with Will's temple. "How many minutes of that five minutes you got left?" he asked Cap quietly.

"Hopefully enough," Cap replied.

* * *

The kid was easy to spot. Clint's laser vision found him hiding in an overturned garbage pile. He pulled the kid out. "Come on, time to go," he said. The kid probably had no clue what he was saying, but he grabbed Clint in a deathgrip.

Then, he heard it. _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat…._ gunfire. From a quinjet. Clint glanced back and saw a wall of smoke and pinging bullets headed straight for him and the kid. _Ultron._ He could see the robot's freaky eyes in the cockpit. _That son of a bitch._

There was nowhere to go. If he ran toward the lifeboat Ultron would strafe the jet and kill more people. There was nothing to get behind. Clint and the kid were out in the open.

_Just a short trip_ …his mind reminded him of his conversation with his kids. _Guess it's a little longer._ He threw his body over the kid, hoping the Kevlar, at the very least, would protect the _kid._ Someone else's kid. He was going to die protecting someone else's kid. Lila and Cooper flashed through his mind. His unborn son. _I'm sorry, kiddos._

_One last project._

There was a rush of air, and the machine gun fire faded away down the line.

He was still hearing it though. Hearing meant… _I'm still alive_. He looked at the crying kid. _We're alive? How?_

He turned to see the blue eyes of Pietro Maximoff staring at him. Red stains rippled through his blue uniform shirt. Pietro coughed, and Clint saw blood in the spittle. _No...no_.

"You…didn't see that…coming," Pietro choked out.

He dropped to his knees. Clint caught him before he could get any farther to the ground.

Steve came running, skidding to a stop next to them. "Is he-?"

"Gone," Clint whispered. "Stupid kid…" He pounded a fist into the pavement. "He took the fire for us," he told Steve. "Saved our lives…"

There was another rumble on the rock. "We need to leave," Steve said, hating that he sounded so indifferent.

Clint nodded, his eyes on Pietro's still form. It was unnerving, seeing him so still. "Right," he said. He passed the boy off to Steve and hefted Pietro over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

* * *

The two of them made their way back to the lifeboat, which Ethan had managed to secure another few moments from. Steve set the boy down and he ran to his mother, crying. His eyes turned toward the horizon, looking into the city. "Clint," Ethan began, stepping up next to the oldest Brandt brother, who was lying across two seats. On the floor next to him, a young man with white-blond hair was lying on his back, red staining his chest. "You okay?" Ethan asked him.

"Yeah." Clint closed his eyes. "Good. I'm good. It's been a long day…"

Whether it was exhaustion or an injury, Ethan didn't know, but the next moment, Clint was passed out on the seat.

Ethan looked up to see Captain America checking for anyone else in the city, and then the floor dropped out from under him. Or rather, the ground did. He saw Steve turn, and jump-impossibly-landing on the still-extended gangplank.

"The city's falling!" Benji yelled unnecessarily.

"Everybody _get the hell off that rock!"_ Steve yelled desperately into his comm.


	15. Chapter 15

_Barton Farm  
Iowa_

Laura Barton did not watch the news. The news was depressing. Half the time, it didn't do any good to watch the news anyway. Clint was a long-distance sniper. There were never any pictures of him on the news footage anyway, which just made her worry more.

But this morning, for some reason, she had turned the little TV in the kitchen on. Her finger had stopped on the channel button for ZNN and she couldn't tear her eyes away. _Catastrophic destruction_ , the anchor was saying. _Thousands dead_. She hit the mute button. No reason for the kids to hear that. Cooper and Lila were both on the couch, reading. It was one of their rituals on a Sunday morning-quiet time in the house. She was making breakfast. Church was in a few hours, and today, she thought to herself, today might be a good day to go.

And Clint…Clint was…

The front door opened. Laura nearly dropped the teakettle she was holding as she saw who was standing in the entryway.

Clint was standing there, in jeans and his favorite leather jacket. Standing next to him was his brother. Both alive. Both well. And, Laura noted, both _together_.

She smiled and came to join them in the living room as Clint reached over the back of the couch and tapped the kids on the heads gently. Cooper and Lila both looked up, screamed, and dropped their books, scrambling over the back of the couch to throw their arms around their father.

"Hey, guys," Clint said, hugging them fiercely. He set them both down. "There's someone you guys need to meet," he told them. He turned to Will. "This is your Uncle Will," he introduced them. "Will, meet Cooper William Barton and Lila Laura Barton."

"Hey, guys," Will told them warmly. "Sorry I ah...had to run out on you last time." Cooper stayed near his father, but Lila threw her arms around Will's legs. Will grinned and picked her up.

"Did you bring us anything?" she asked him.

"Lila-" Laura began, but Will was laughing.

"You know what, sweetheart, I didn't." He looked at his brother. "That must be part of the being an uncle game, huh."

She nodded. "Well, Lila," Will continued with a glance at his brother. "I'll learn," he promised her. "I'll learn." Then, he smiled. "Besides," he added, with a look over the top of her head at Clint, "If you think uncles are supposed to bring stuff…wait until you meet your grandma and grandpa."

Laura reached around Cooper and hugged Clint fiercely. "We missed you," she said into his ear.

"You won't have to much longer," Clint replied quietly.

She looked up into his face, and he smiled, tiredly. "One last project," he reminded her. He looked over at Will. "Project complete."

* * *

_Avengers Facility  
Upstate New York  
One week later..._

Clint had never seen Nick Fury look...confused.

But this look...this was _definitely_ confused.

"You're... _sure_...about this?" he asked him, for what Clint figured was the fourth or fifth time since he'd walked in with his resignation letter.

"As sure as I was the first three times you asked me," Clint finally said. He was going to miss needling his boss. "Coulson's gone. Natasha has the Avengers...and I have a family I've been neglecting for too long. Laura's due any day now and I need..." He took a breath. "I need to be home. My kids need their dad."

Fury couldn't argue with that. "You think you can really leave all this behind?" he asked, waving a hand. Out his office window, Clint could see Steve and Sam Wilson chatting. Behind them, Wanda hung back, a faint red glow on her fingertips. As if she knew he was looking, she looked up, and gave him a small smile. The red disappeared. She was going to be in good hands, Clint knew. She and Vision had been hanging out a little-now _that_ was a random pairing if he'd ever seen one.

Clint smiled as he got up out of his chair and shook Fury's hand. "Yes," he said firmly. "They don't need me anymore," he said simply. He gave Fury a two-fingered salute, turned on his heel, and left the room.

Fury leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping Clint's letter on his desk. "You'd be surprised, Barton," he said thoughtfully. "You'd be surprised..."

* * *

_Three weeks later…  
Baltimore, Maryland_

The home of Donald and Laura Barton was buzzing. Donald Barton, Baltimore PD retired, was arguing with Clint over the grill in the backyard of the Barton home in Baltimore, over whether or not the steaks he was currently grilling were medium rare or well. "Not all of us want our meat to 'moo' when we eat it!" Donald was protesting his son's opinion.

"Dad, this is corn-fed Iowa beef," Clint argued. "It's better a little pink!"

"You know, if you guys stand there and argue any longer," Will cut in, leaning against the deck railing, "they'll all be well done."

Something wet nailed him in center of his back, and he turned to see a giggling Cooper taking off for the safety behind the shed, a blue water balloon in his hand. "Just like his dad!" Laura teased Uncle Will, who set his drink down and hopped over the railing to go chase down his nephew. He was immediately soaked with the hose by Lila, who squealed and took off running as Will changed direction and went after his niece instead, dropping her into the small kiddie pool the grandparents had bought. Cooper joined a minute later, throwing water at his uncle.

Laura was bouncing baby Nathaniel Pietro Barton on her lap, much to the delight of his adoring grandmother Laura. "You better get out there, Clinton," Laura Brandt told her oldest. "Will's got the disadvantage!"

"Got that covered," Clint grinned, reaching into the cooler and producing a cheap dollar-store water pistol. "Gang up on Uncle Will!" he called out. He started sniping his brother from the deck before coming onto the lawn to join in the fun.

"How is he holding up?" Laura asked her daughter-in-law.

Nathaniel squirmed and Laura rocked him a minute before answering. "He's okay," she admitted. "That was rough on him," she said. "Not as many nightmares as….well, as before," she said. "But I think he'll be okay. He needed this," she added, nodding to the yard and the grill. "He needed to spend time with his family."

Laura Brandt laughed. "Especially now that there's more family!" she said with a grin. She laughed and pointed to the kiddie pool. Clint and Will were both soaking wet now. Lila still had the hose and Cooper had just dumped a bucket of water over his father's head.

"I swear they're just like their father and his brother at Cooper's age," Donald said. "I've missed this," he admitted. He reached over and squeezed Laura Barton's hand. "Welcome to the family, sweetheart. We're glad to finally know you."

"I thought you'd be..." Laura searched for the right word. "Upset," she decided on finally.

"We don't keep secrets in this family," Laura Brandt told her. "I'll admit, at first I was a little angry at my oldest for not telling us, but, I can understand why he did it." She smiled. "I'm just glad Clint decided not to keep you away from us forever!" She chuckled. "Now I can stop bugging at least _one_ of them about grandchildren!"

"I heard that!" Will told her, running past the desk as Cooper chased him with a water gun.

"Is is true Clint's retiring?" Donald asked, closing the lid on the grill.

Laura nodded. "Turned in his resignation to Director Fury a few weeks ago," she replied. "I couldn't be happier, except now I'm not sure I'll ever get him out of the house. I swear, that man always has a project."

"That's the curse of the Brandt men," Laura Brandt said, reaching over to hold her grandson. "There is nothing in the world that can hold them down. That's why one's a superspy and one's a superhero."

"Except family," Donald spoke up, coming to join them at the table, setting a plate full of steaks on the picnic table. "Family's the only thing that keeps them grounded."

"And free food," Will said, coming up the stairs to join them on the deck. He hugged his parents from behind, and Donald Brandt swore, temporarily forgetting there were kids present. Clint came up behind Laura, and Laura had just enough time to pass Nathaniel off to his grandmother before she was encased in a wet family group hug.


End file.
